Anyone else found Regice extremely hard for the first 4-5 raids, then very easy?
I went 0-5 in my first Regice raids, something that has never happened to me with any other raid boss. For comparison, I started 3-5 against Kyogre, which gave most players nightmares. Even with as many as 12 premier balls, he jumped out of one ball after another despite me throwing only great and excellent curveballs. Since that terrible start, though, I'm 8-0 with Regice, including a couple of first throw catches and one where I forgot to use a berry. Has Niantic purposely made it difficult to get the first one to keep the players who only want one playing longer and then easier to get more to keep the raid junkies happy?
I realize this is just one anecdotal example, which is why I was curious to hear if others have experienced the same.
Answers
It's all luck. Legendaries have miniscule catch rates that range somewhere from 5 to 15% so you have as much a chance of catching one with a straight no bonus throw as you would with a GRBed, excellent curveball. I have caught 7/7 Regice so far using only pinaps, which is unusual for me. In contrast, I was at a 75% success catch rate for Kyogre when it was first introduced but it went down to 40% after it came back last month. That's how many bailed out on me, even though I became a considerably more proficient thrower hitting excellent curveballs with GOLDENS and had a much higher bonus ball count due to having a much better whale hunting team. This round, I think I only caught like 7 normal ones out of the 50+ I faced in addition to the shinies. Not a good month for me in that regard cause I was hoping to use the candy to max a third Ky without using RCs.
It's all random chance but to say you have the same odds with no bonus versus doing everything right is simply not true.
Take Kyogre for example, whose base catch rate is 2%. Assuming 12 balls, balls thrown straight on with no catch bonuses (no medal, no curve, no GRB or normal Razz), each ball has an individual 2% chance of catching it, with 18% overall of catching it. Not saying you can't catch it this way, but probably definitely isn't on your side. The less balls you have the less likelihood you catch it - with only 8 balls 18% drops to 14%.
Now, say you do everything right to maximize your chances (GRB, curve, excellent, gold medal). That 2% per ball skyrockets to 14% - each individual ball has the same odds as an 8-ball no bonus scenario. With 12 balls your odds of walking away with a Kyogre are 86% over 4 times as likely. With 8 balls this drops to 72%, which isn't great but still workable.
I saw it's all random chance because obviously you could still get lucky with only a 14% success chance or get unlucky with a 14% failure chance. That's the inherent nature of RNG though, you never know for sure until the final breakout or the third shake.
Some parts of that are true and I'll admit to not knowing the exact catch rate percentages from memory but mine weren't so far off from the real ones. I didn't even consider the type badges because I just assume that most people are done with most by this point, for instance.
My point does not have anything to do with cumulative percentages (which are so ridiculous at those margins to even be considered). Saying a difference of 2% and 14% is big enough to call it a "skyrocket" increase is the definition of overstatement. Of course it will count overall and increase the odds of some very lucky person every once in a while, I acknowledge that. But it is still a marginal advantage.
Adding up to what you say about the cumulative odds being higher, I will never agree or accept that those are valid claims since they imply that if you were to add more balls it would eventually add up to a 100% catch rate (despite each throw having a maximum 14% chance of getting the catch), which is simply not true.
What I am saying is that I do not claim that we have the same odds with no bonus vs. all bonus (2=/=14); rather that, while the theory states one percentage number is, in fact, higher than the other, the increase in catch rate is not big enough to make a considerable difference in practice.
If there were no bonuses and all throws had a static 14% catch rate, no one would call it high by any means. It's not even a one-in-five chance. That's my point. But thanks for providing the actual math.
Not really, but I could sorta see why.
It has a vicious attack animation frequency that can easily catch people off guard. If you aren't tossing your ball towards the end of its animation you have a higher chance of failing due to it knocking it away than other legendaries just due to how much it likes to swat. -- I say this while catching 2/2 encounters, and a third from the single time I helped a family member who was struggling. So I'm 3/3 technically for catching them, I've done it successfully every time. But it's still a rough one and I had to kinda eye it for a bit.
Kyogre wasn't hard (pre nerf) due to its attacks but rather its positioning. Its frequency was hard to judge, and it could swat away, but while that could happen it really wasn't worse than others. What made it worse was how far back it was which was deceptive in distance, making it easy to overthrow or underthrow. Moving side to side really did not help at all. Post nerf where it was closer to the screen made it a lot easier, as while it attacked, there was a much easier window to hit it through.
I think Kyogre was probably one of the easier ones post nerf outside of just being really really annoying moving about (but not hard). Pre nerf absolutely the hardest to land on.
Regice is hard for people who can't time their throws during attacks of legendaries but the moment you can do that it's no different than others, hell, it's easier than most due to all it does besides that is a moderate jump (vs say Lati@s that fly up and down while attacking frequently, or the 3 beasts that jump like crazy and are harder to time with/require patience to wait for attack animations that still easily end with jumping).
I think avoidance and positioning make them way harder to time than repetitive attack animations once you learn the trick (spin the ball, release the curve as the attack animation is finishing, not after it finishes, this stops double swipes from blocking you).
Ik this is a long post but I hope this helps at least one person out there.
Good analysis, thank you. Are you using the "circle lock" method to lock in a Great or Excellent? I think your Regice technique might only work optimally with the circle lock method as the ball will arrive on target when it should only be a "nice" throw ie circle would still be large.. For my throw technique (a looping curve which really is a curve ball) the circle lock does not work as it takes the ball to long to arrive on target. Thus for Regice I have the problem of double attacks and batted balls as the air time of my balls is substantial. For others that don't (or cannot or won't) use the circle lock we will continue to suffer but in the end we should get our fill of good Regs. Who really wants more than 1 or 2 of these thus far worthless oil cans??
Regis are my favorite Legendary trio and arguably favorites period.
I dont really worry about greats/nice/excellents as those are naturally easy on legendaries, I average great throws without attempting to really and excellents are too much effort to really go for when realistically youre not going to be hitting them every time anyways.
I just rapidly spin the ball around until it has its stars or whatever and I just keep doing it and doing it and doing it until I see the attack animation and right as the animation is towards its end -but not finished- i release it to curve off the screen so it hits the edge of the screen and loops back around to hit the legend. If you time it right works without fail as every Pokemon has at least a tiny tiny period before it cant swipe again (and i do mean small but with this method it wont happen).
1/1, caught with a Pinap. Easy to throw at due to its huge hitbox, which is just weirdly placed on top of its head instead of on its face. Don't have much to contribute but I doubt they'd intentionally make a boss harder to catch for a few days. Regice is already an undesirable raid boss, making people extra frustrated with it serves no purpose.
I'm 4/4, with 3 of those catches coming on First Ball Excellent Curveballs with Golden Razzberry - I'm finding it ridiculously easy to get Excellents on this guy. (I had the same luck with Ho-Oh - I'm 18/21 with Ho-Oh. Amusingly the only Ho-Oh's I didn't catch were all Weather Boosted.)
It's just the weird and wacky "R"NG for Niantic. Niantic, where "Random" means "Proof that AI exists and like to mess with human minds."
