Pinap VS Golden? The Best Ways of Getting Candy from Raid Bosses

As you can see, at lower catch rates, a Golden Razz will give more expected candy than Pinap. The two lines intersect at a catch rate of about 28.026%. Above this, Pinap berries will give more candy than Golden Razz. This is true for any Pokemon, not just raid bosses. However, the above graph ignores the candy from transferring the Pokemon because the evolution stage of the Pokemon will affect the cutoff due to differences in exact candy amounts.

Since there are modifiers such as medals, curve balls, and throw bonuses, the better a person’s throw capabilities, the more likely it is for Pinaps to be superior. However, Raid bosses also have different base capture rates making many have unmodified capture rates where Golden Razz is superior. Gold medals and curve balls give a combined multiplier of 2.21 while throw bonus (nice, great, excellent) can make a total multiplier of 4.42. Additionally, the more balls that a person has remaining, the better it is to use Pinaps over Golden Razz Berries. If you plan to transfer the Pokemon, Golden Razz Berries become more valuable because Pinaps do not double transfer candy. This means that while the numerical difference in total candy is the same after transferring, the percentage difference is not.

Below is a table summarizing when to use each. The number in the box show how many balls remaining when Pinap becomes better than Golden Razz. For example, if you are not expecting any throw bonuses, you should use Pinap Berries when you have at least 3 Premier balls left against a Machamp but use Golden Razz Berries when you have less than 3 left. If there are two numbers in the box, the first number accounts for the one candy gained from transfers while the second number ignores the candy from transfer. If you often fail to hit the Pokemon because it jumps or attacks a lot, start using Golden Razz Berries when you have more balls left.

To create the table, we first needed to figure out which berry is best for the last ball. To do this, we took the amount of candy granted for each berry, multiplied it by the capture rate using that berry then compared the results. If PInap is better for the last ball, it will always be better. If Golden Razz is found to be better on the last ball, we calculated the expected candies for the second-to-last ball. In this case, we took the likelihood of breaking out for each berry and multiplied it with the expected candies if Golden Razz is used for the last ball. We took these amounts and added it to the expected candies for each berry. If Golden Razz is still found to be superior, we continued this process for more balls. Therefore, the berry strategy for the current berry assumes that you will always pick the best berry for subsequent throws if the Pokemon breaks free.

For each bonus, if it wasn't used, the factor just equals 1 so it doesn't contribute.

What is this 2-r, you ask? The Throw bonus depends r, the radius of the colored target ring (from 1 to 0, with r=1 when target ring is same size as the white ring). That means the Throw bonus ranges from 1 to 2, as the size of target ring decrease in size. You must hit inside the inner circle to get a Throw bonus. No bonus is awarded when you land outside the circle.