Failing to catch legendaries, when is it your fault?
I've been seeing some posts where people 'complain' or just illustrate it is difficult to catch legendaries.
I don't object, I think they are difficult as well. However, there is a heck of a lot that one can do to mitigate this shortcoming.
1. Choice of berry: If at any point that you used Pinap or Nanab (or even normal razz) instead of GR and you fail, then it's your fault for not catching it. I failed pinap ttar twice with 27 excellents (13 and 14 balls respectively), but since I pinaped it I can't blame anyone but myself.
2. Throw style and radius:
Curve is a must, if you throw straight and it flees then again it's on you. For the beasts I also expect people to hit excellent with 2 months+ of training from the other beasts. I suppose hitting great is 'OK' but could've easily been better.
3. Ball count:
Everyone should have at least 7 balls (6 for default and 1 damage). But there is a choice of choosing your own teams gym and having mediocre contribution from your team (2+2=4 more). This applies to minority teams as well. Then you should have 11 balls.
Therefore I give this general argument: If you do not hit 10 curved excellent shots at the (beast) boss with golden Razz (allowing for 1 miss, we are all human), then should it flee, it's really down to you. Birds and mewtwo are more difficult (or unfamiliar) so the blame part wouldn't be that strict.
Answers
That's pretending you can get enough golden razz berries to throw ten of them at every raid boss. If it's a really good one, sure, toss a golden razz at it for every throw, but if you waste all your berries on every mediocre raid catch you see, you won't have any left when something exceptional does come along.
I also don't really think you can say "It's your fault you only got 7 throws" to someone who shows up to a raid with ten other people, but none of them are on that person's team, plus those other teams sniped the gym just before the egg hatched. I've only had two Tyranitars run away, and that's what happened both times, nothing I could do about it.
But yes, you should be throwing curved excellents for at least most of your throws. Of course, there's usually one or two throws each raid where the game lags at the exact moment you release the ball, so it flies off in a random direction, or the pokemon's attack animation takes three extra seconds to end, so the ball just bounces off its head.
Yes but equally, no one is complaining when their sub 80 or even sub 90 legendary runs away. Therefore for whatever one doesn't value, what berry one uses doesn't matter.
I've been a victim and victor of 100 legendaries too.
For my 100 lugia I had 8 balls. 3 of them connected with great (the other ones are probably 'nice', a couple of them not registering as curves due to the bug and none excellent). This is entirely on me. I choked, should've had more balls, and it ran.
For my 100 Raikou I had 11 balls (the 'minimum standard' I suggested). 4 GR curve excellent and got it, well deservedly because of the much improved position I've put myself in. If I continued the streak and hit another 6 GR curve excellent and miss it, well, it is bad luck... but if any of them had been greats, I would be questioning myself after that.
About the 7 balls fault part- yes, it is a bit harsh. However, if the last minute the gym flips to another team, find another gym. If you still continue to do the raid at that point it is really at your own risk because a rival gym doesn't attract as much attention for your own team's players as well. Coordinating raid teams and slots would also help tremendously (both keeping numbers low and team contribution consistent).
Ttar I'm willing to risk a rival gym because it has a higher catch rate. Legendaries, I'm not so sure because every ball counts.
Where I live, you take what you can get, and there's no such thing as "find another gym." Especially the last couple months, the big question is, "Will there be enough people active at the same time for any successful raids today?" Half the time the answer is no, and you're lucky if you can get a group at all, so if you pass on a raid because you won't get any team bonuses, you better go find something you can solo if you want to raid anything that day.
Those two Tyranitars that ran away from me were back when the last-ball glitch was still a problem, and a lot more people were still active. These days, 80% of Tyranitar raids end like this, "We've got 3 so far for this Tyranitar, can anyone else join? Anyone? No? Alright, it's gone now, maybe next time." "Hey, just got home, any raids around?" "Not anymore." Plus the fact that we only have about 30 gyms in a 20-mile radius means that Tyranitar raids often go days without even appearing at all, so it's rare to get to do more than one per week. Suicune appear more often, but still rarely get enough people to actually beat any of them. The only time there's any chance for enough people to show up to make it possible to split up by team is when a brand new legendary first appears.
There is only so much one can do with the optimal lineup. Even with 6 Raikou vs Suicune, 6 Dragonite+Rhydon vs Raikou etc, you won't hit +2 damage if 20 players pile in. The 10+ balls only comes after you coordinate raid groups and keep raid numbers low so you have a shot of +3 damage balls or at least, group damage +3. It is going above and beyond, but it's not impossible.
8-9 curve excellent GR is still a massive chance to catch it, but it goes without saying if you rolled a 100, you'd wish you have 13-14.
You're right, but the thing is that I don't like to exclude people from participating just to have those additional damage/colour balls.
We have a telegram group for solely the east side of Rotterdam (the Netherlands). When I encounter a raid I want to do, e share this information with others and agree on a time.
It could be more efficient in terms of balls, but I honestly don't mind those 2 extra balls even tho they could have made me catch significant more Pokemon. I'm very good at throwing, so I trust the amount of balls will be sufficient in general.
It must be nice to get to pick and choose when your raid, where your raid, and who you raid with. I'm lucky that in mystic in a majority mystic town, so i typically get 10+ balls and 12-13 for a legendary isn't unusual. However, with the time change, work schedules, and raid fatigue, we do well to get 6-7 at a raid. It's remarkable if we get more than 10. Oh, and there are only 9 gyms in town, so you can't just wait for suicune to show up at your home gym. We need the stars to align to be able to do more than 1 legendary per day.
If I were a lower level? If I weren't mystic? I'd be scraping by with 6-7 balls every raid and there wouldn't be anything I could do about it.
Lower level is kinda 'your fault' as well, there has to be something that awards higher level players, right? (Also the catch medals).
If a level 25 fails to catch it with 6 balls GR curve excellent because he/she couldn't get the damage bonus, is beyond their control, but what is wrong is, that they go around thinking 'I totally deserved this 100% legendary!'
But 6-7 for a raid, isn't that literally the perfect number for a legendary beast raid? It's at least 2, quite possibly 3 damage balls for the grabs. Get that and you get at least 1 team bonus as well.
Discounting gym control,
6+2(personal)+2(team, likely if 2 personal)=10
6+3(personal)+2(team, definite if 3 personal)=11
You imply but don't actually question whether these people are using the "trick" documented by ProdigiesNation on youtube.
Not everyone is aware of it. I only learned of it at a raid this week. There was even a level 40 player at that raid who was also unaware of it.
When someone posts "you should hit it with a majority of excellent throws" they are implying that they are using this "trick". Look it up online, practice it on a raid boss until you have it down, and going forward those two extra balls from team bonus won't be as big an issue. In my opinion, it's actually easier to time and execute on legendaries than other raid bosses.
That being said, Niantic will likely take steps to make this obsolete next month.
By trick, I assume you meant the wait until boss attack then throw after you lock target circle.
Yes- this is a very big implication. However, through trial and error one can easily come up with an approximation. Before the 'prodigies nation technique' (around the Moltres/Zapdos week) I went around spinning the ball until the boss attacks and throw, I could at least get a nice/great that way. Far from perfect, but from that point on I tried experimenting and come up with better I remember in the 2nd week of playing my friend just told me to time throw when the pokemon attacks so your ball doesn't bounce off - doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.
But then again I see some L40s post in local facebook groups about how their 2097 Ttar or 1913 Raikou Runs away.
Then, I really question them- did you GR curve excellent every single time and have 10+ balls? If that occurs, the catch rate of legendaries is (GR curve excellent with gold medal) is 1- (0.84)^10=82%. Raise it to 14 balls, it becomes 91%. It's either he was a terrible shot, he could've done more to get more balls to begin with, or he was just unlucky. It's probably one of the first two.
I don't see what incentive Niantic has to change the way throwing mechanics work. That doesn't preclude them from doing something stupid, as per usual, but I don't see why they would make a fuss about something that barely registers as an 'exploit'. Especially compared with, say, spoofing and hogging up your area's EX passes. It's hard enough to reliably catch the beasts (I've had them run on me with a full complement of balls, GRazz and excellent throws each time) and there's skill involved in using this trick, so I don't see a problem with it.
I have a pretty decent catch rate on Raikou (73%) and I'm still wondering if excellent curved + gold razz is always the winning combo. I usually hit the beast with excellent curved 95% of the time and use only gold razz on Raikou above 1890.
2 hours ago, a friend caught the 1913 one on his 1st straight throw with a regular berry while I managed to hit him 12 times in a row with excellent curved + gold razz (I always use ProdigiesNation method) and I didn't catch him. This is the 3rd time it happens with 12+ balls. Not a complain as they were all 3 under 1900 but just wondering if it's predetermined whether you'll get it or not no matter what you do.
