Catching in Gen 3/4 is surprisingly SIMPLE!

[@Lyra]

You can get Pokémon items from Japan by using Buyee! Go to this link to obtain a 2,000 yen coupon: bit.ly/buyee-Lyramadeawebsite. You will receive the coupon after singing up. This video is bit more "math-y" than the previous ones, so I hope it is still clear and enjoyable! Looking back, I realize I did not give the Quick Ball the credit it deserved. For common Pokémon, it is pretty much a turn 1 catch. But at the same time, most Balls are very good against Pokémon with a high catch rate. Maybe I will revisit it in another video, who knows ;')

[@lextatertotsfromhell7673]

Based sponsor haver

[@MustacheDLuffy]

I wish they designed new pokeballs again. We haven’t got anything since the Dream ball in gen 5 and I think they’re creative

[@লবণহানটারman]

@@MustacheDLuffy beast ball?

[@tezcanaslan2877]

Buyee are scammers

[@justerfrog5557]

This brings back memories of the time I caught mewtwo in a nest ball because "weak pokemon" is ambiguous if it's "low level pokemon" or "low hp pokemon."

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

The Dive Ball post Gen 3 is the one that always confuses me personally. Is it just surfing Pokemon? Fishing?

[@emperortoho]

its surfing and fishing i’m pretty sure

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

@@emperortoho Confirmed in the video. But I had a doubt for a while.

[@MrEnte3000]

@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 But the video says it's for underwater Pokémon that you encounter with Dive...

[@justerfrog5557]

Yeah that's cool but why is this discussion happening as repies to my comment about nest balls?

[@sugar_700]

By the way, fun fact I discovered just now: while Poison does give 1.5x multiplier, in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire due to programming error, Bad Poison (the one from Toxic) doesn't have that multiplier as the code checks specifically for regular Poison status. This was fixed in Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen.

[@Mordecrox]

Gotta like how fixing that isn't very relevant, if you're going for toxic as a status for capture, you're doing it wrong and the issue will "fix" itself in five turns anyway. Wonder if they picked it up but found it was borderline worthless to fix

[@Mimiyan_or_Pikapikafan]

​@@Mordecroxif it was like a day before and they had to choose between a few glitches, yeah I think that's honestly fair. Toxic is the most anti-catch status after all, unless the Pokemon has Poison Heal

[@NataliaNeeSama]

For people who don't have a Spore user, a Pokemon like Butterfree with Compound Eyes can also do the trick. Compound Eyes make Sleep Powder be 97% accurate, basically as good as Spore most of time.

[@Lyra]

I did not know that! I am terrible when it comes to Pokémon Abilites, so you taught me something! Thank you :')

[@Samuel.55]

If it’s not 100% accurate, it’s 50% accurate

[@SomeGuy712x]

@@Samuel.55 Well, you can add the Wide Lens to the Compound Eyes + Sleep Powder combo to get rid of that 2.5% chance to miss.

[@HiramP20]

Butterfree is very underated and is probably the sole reason gamefreak doesnt do singles, in anything goes you can put a pokemon to sleep and just keep boosting with quiver dance, substitue, put another pokemon to sleep if they switch, and use stab 95% accurate hurricane if your 3rd sense is tingling and you think the opponent might have a lum berry lol

[@butteredsalmonella]

@@HiramP20 I mean singles has Sleep Clause. Butterfree still loses to Stealth Rocks and Bug/Flying isnt exactly a good offensive typing, worst of all, its outclassed by Venomoth (As a compoundeyes Sleep Powder user in AG, its outclassed by Vivillon instead). Still an alright Pokemon in NU/PU/ZU.

[@wysteria-hysteria]

I love your usage of the Pokémon animation sprite frames as reaction images, seeing them made me laugh a bit each time they showed up.

[@Lyra]

That's the goal, so learning it works makes me happy :'D Thank you!

[@jeremydavis3631]

For those interested, the CaptureStrength formula at 4:29 looks complicated but is actually quite simple. The big numbers and nested operations come from the need to use only integer arithmetic and from (I would guess) the lack of a 4th-root function. Two nested square roots are the same as a 4th root (which I will write as 4rt). So if we remove the integer arithmetic restriction, the whole thing can be simplified to 65535 * 4rt(finalCR / 255). To get a probability from this, we can divide by 65535, so the final probability for each wobble is 4rt(finalCR / 255). My understanding is that this is the probability that the pokemon will not break out of the ball during that wobble. The probability of catching the pokemon is the probability that it doesn't break out during any of the 4 wobbles. So we can raise the probability to the 4th power to find the catch chance: 4rt(finalCR / 255)^4 = finalCR / 255. So, as Lyra said, in the absence of rounding errors, the final catch rate really is unchanged by this formula. The big numbers and weirdly rearranged divisions are only there to minimize rounding errors.

[@Lyra]

Thank you for the breakdown! Like you explained, the wobbling formula shows the developers knew about their limitations and designed around it. Another example I didn't mention: Ball multipliers are actually 10 times their value (the Poké Ball is x10, Great Ball x15, Ultra Ball x20 for example) as they couldn't store the decimal modifiers. The result is then divided by 10 during calculations.

[@rac1equalsbestgame853]

I suck at math and instantly understood it

[@deltamico]

bless you

[@LRM12o8]

@@Lyra I was wondering the entire video how the Great Ball was any different from the Ultra Ball, if it's 1.5 multiplier was rounded up to 2. That explains it!

[@RGC_animation]

In future games, Timer Ball was boosted significantly so that it reaches ×4 catch rate as soon as turn 10, and becomes better than an Ultra Ball at turn 4! By the time you set up everything, it is probably gonna be better than the Ultra Ball already.

[@LRM12o8]

In the meantime 11 year old me left the DS running on charger overnight, hoping to come back in the morning and easily catch Giratina. Thought I had outsmarted the game, but - surprise, surprise - it didn't work. Pokémon Diamant (GER) said the ball would get more effective the *longer* the battle lasts, suggesting it worked on a *timer* (ie. system clock), rather than being based on the number of turns. 😅

[@CocoRoxas]

@@LRM12o8 I love this sm 😂

[@sockosophie3132]

Das hab ich als Kind auch gedacht :D @@LRM12o8

[@BlueDreamXxX]

Legit used to try and throw quick balls as fast as possible because I thought it worked better the less amount of time spent in battle

[@flametitan100]

What's also really fun with dusk balls was how many things counted as "caves" in gen 4. Places you wouldn't expect to be caves were treated as caves for the 3.5x modifier, and it was glorious.

[@alwayshere6956]

Men claiming women's identity and vice versa is colonialism of the most privileged degree

[@RK-cj4oc]

Any fun examples?

[@flametitan100]

@@RK-cj4oc Off the top of my head, I could've sworn the event location you catch Darkrai in is counted as a cave area, but Bulbapedia says that's only true in the remakes.

[@oliverleonard7730]

Sprout Tower is a good example.

[@empoleonmaster6709]

I’m pretty sure most places or every place in gen 4 you encounter legendaries count as a cave lol. Is it remotely shaded or has a roof? “Cave” lol

[@geliscon]

The timer ball is slept on in Gen 3 for catching legendaries. It doesn’t take too long to out perform the ultra ball, and it has a lot of upside

[@itsyaboiguzma2325]

Dude, i've a pc full of legendaries and shinies caught in duskballs from the gen 4 days, it was awesome.

[@Anodyne_Akôn]

Dusk ball too good ; the conditions are way too easy to meet.

[@anzaia2164]

Do the lake caves count as caves? Cause I just spent 40 minutes throwing dusk balls at Uxie, and in the end, killed it on accident. Tbf, it didn't stay in the 20 Timerballs I started throwing after round 30, either. I came to this video in desperation. Am I just cursed by RNGesus, or is the hp multiplier that powerful? I don't have false swipe, so I used lvl 1 Riolu to take off 1 hp at a time, throwing more balls in between. It died after five attacks.

[@stormrunner4081]

I mean adding to 255 and then caping out is probably better than it overflowing and makeing a hoothoot harder to catch than a mewtwo or hoho

[@amberhernandez]

Hoho, the Santa Pokémon

[@thewanderers97]

@@amberhernandez new delibird evolution lookin wild

[@Swagpion]

After gen 2 the game's could handle those numbers. It's just to limit the numbers to one byte, for efficiency.

[@regalternative]

Ever since the move Soak was added in Gen V, Net Balls have been my #1 ball (though Quick Balls remain a close 2nd)

[@psuedonym9999]

I never thought of that. That's actually an amazing strategy!

[@gengarzilla1685]

Plus, Soak removes a Ghost type's immunity to False Swipe. That's some genuine good tech here.

[@excalibur493]

I didn't think that'd work. Genius!

[@Firescizor]

Wait, does it check the Pokémon's type when the ball is clicked, or does it check the base Pokémon's type, as in, it's species type

[@regalternative]

@@Firescizor It must check the type it has as affected by the battle. I honestly didn't think it'd work either but unless I'm the luckiest person in the world I can confirm it works from gen 5 to 9.

[@MrCheeze]

Talking about modified catch rates, more recent games actually follow a convention where cover legendaries that you're "expected" to catch have a much higher catch rate than normal, but only in the game that they're starring in. This led to many catch rate changes - Dialga/Palkia/Reshiram/Zekrom were made far more difficult in ORAS compared to their starring games, while Rayquaza and Necrozma were made much easier than usual in ORAS and USUM, respectively

[@ch3rry833]

Rayquaza in ORAS is a 100% catchrate in ORAS if I remember correctly, right?

[@lpfan4491]

I thought that was only for the Gen 5 and 6 legendaries because you literally need to catch them to advance the story. You can punch the creation trio in the face if you want to.

[@gengarzilla1685]

It's the highest possible rate, but this isn't 100%.

[@thepurified8386]

Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Zekrom and Reshiram had 3 catchrate. Box legendaries started getting easier to catch with Xerneas and Yveltal.

[@lpfan4491]

@@thepurified8386 Eh, no. Reshiram and Zekrom had the same 45 as the Gen 6 legendaries, but they were lowered to 3 in ORAS because they were no longer story-relevant. Dialga and Palkia appearently also had a catch rate of 30, which makes them the only Pokemon that weren't required in any game that had an increased catchrate, I stand corrected.

[@willbowden6897]

Back in my hey day of catching everything in the postgame, I had things down to a science. I would buy a bunch of dusk balls, quick balls, net balls, timer balls, and ultra balls for the ones that slipped through the cracks. I'd throw a quick ball on the first turn, especially against common Pokemon because I had a good chance of catching it without any effort. Then I would use a Smeargle who I taught spore, thunder wave, false swipe, and foresight (for Ghosts, sometimes I'd replace a move with mean look for roaming legendaries). In the later gens I had a tactician Smeargle who I EV trained in attack and gave a silk scarf to (or maybe it was something better, I forget) so that I could hopefully get it done to 1 HP in a turn or 2, then just spam spore (thunderwave if I got lazy or it was immune to spore). I had looked up all the catch rates so I knew which situations to use which balls. I'd mainly play at night so it was dusk balls all around, but on weekends sometimes I'd use the others and in legendary fights if they dragged on too long I'd go with timer balls. Thanks for the video, I would have found this really interesting back then (and still do now). Hopefully a lot of people are coming back to those middle generations of Pokemon since that's really when I think the series peaked.

[@StrawberryPidgey]

me: just throws ultra balls at everything since gen 1 onward lmao

[@Croationman]

Cool. I did similar with Parasect. As for the final sentiment, I couldn’t agree more. I played Pokémon all throughout my life until slowly but surely the series lost me. I thoroughly played the first 4 games to near or 100% completion. Then Black and White less so, X and Y are even less than that. Then Sun and Moon I basically just finished as fast as possible. Everyone sees the first two games as the most classic of course and are wonderful in their own ways. But now as a full grown adult looking back, Emerald, Platinum, and in particular HeartGold and SoulSilver are amongst the greatest most complex most compelling games of all time, Personally, other than the Resident Evil series up to 4, and a few one off titles, the generation 4 remakes are the greatest games of all time.

[@delphoxoa9677]

I just wanted to say that your content totally rocks!! I started a Living Dex recently and your website has been a GINORMOUS HELP on my adventure!! I'm hoping to begin supporting your Patreon soon thanks to your great help!! Keep up the amazing work!

[@Lyra]

Thank you very much for the kind words. I am always happy to learn when someone uses the website :'D

[@OmegaTyrant]

Quick Balls are amazing; even if the pokemon will be at max health and no status, the catch rate becomes so high that it still has a high chance to work or is outright guaranteed against most pokemon, especially after its Gen 5 buff to X5. In most encounters I just chuck a Quick Ball and it's done.

[@arkbuble]

Question: Quick ball is useful against roaming pokemon if you left them at low hp and sleep, they run and you find them in a new fight? Or it doesnt count as the first turn anymore?

[@fireheart1231]

Quick Balls are in fact, amazing on Roamers.

[@enoyna1001]

It's always the first turn once the encounter starts anew.

[@jrlaps521]

If you reencounter them it still counts as the first turn

[@psuedonym9999]

Yes. That's how I caught Mespirit, and I think Cresselia as well.

[@sylvery_]

Yes. A different encounter has a different turn counter, and since the counter ends at the end of the first encounter, at the start of the second, the quick balls effects will still be applied since it IS the first turn of this encounter. (if that makes sense, I’m not good at english lol)

[@mgostIH]

I sometimes forget this channel exists, but it's such a joy to see videos of yours pop up here and there :D

[@delta-v4x]

This is an interesting mix of integer and real numbers mechanics, suggesting the formula for the catch rate was designed before the specs for GBA hardware were known to developers. As Pokemon by that time was firmly the platform-selling game and Game Freak was likely in the loop as quick as possible, this likely dates the integer-based formula as mid-2000-ish, maybe even before Crystal original release and the wobbles check as a later addition. Knowing the wobbles result beforehand and just displaying it as an animation is a valid shortcut, but likely someone thought "hey, we have a proper 32-bit cpu now with all the floating points in it, why the hell not?" Square roots must have been liberating as calculating distances in integer is a route full of hacky solutions that give a result that's as accurate as assuming pi equaling 3 for the ease of calculations. Enough error to have quirky edge cases, not enough for the vast majority of players to notice nothing. Weird-ish parentheses in the formula presented may be a tradeoff between wanting higher divided number to make integer division less errory and not wanting the multiplication result to overflow the likely 16-bit unsigned integer limit. The original was 8 bit ofc, but likely the formula was developed in anticipation of just 16-bit no FPU CPU, like 80286.

[@raina1848]

Thanks for making this! I always thought the dusk ball was amazing. And I remember the timer balls being handy. I caught Rayquaza with one.

[@dudono1744]

Timer balls were my jam for colosseum (until I could mass produce master balls)

[@imablisy]

a new lyra video on my day off? what a treat!!

[@justsomejojo]

The Dusk ball truly is ridiculous. I used it ALL the time and still do when replaying those games. The funny thing is that, for whatever reason, I thought the ball worked on real time terms, growing stronger from the moment it got dark (I think 8:00 pm in Gen4?) until peaking at midnight. I don't know where I got that from, but that's what I thought. So, with my newfound powers of being a teenager (I bought Diamond with my first internship money too, good times) I used to stay up late specifically for legendary pokemon not in caves and rare hard to catch mons. Gen4 was also the first gen in which I actually completed a living dex, so I guess my dedication, even if misdirectedf, paid off. A shame that they busted Kurt's balls again though. HGSS made it so much easier to get apricorns and actually showed you the designs ingame, so it'd have been awesome to have some mons in matching balls. For that reason, they became an exceptional feature (to me) when they eventually brought them back in Alola (albeit in stupidly low quantity).

[@OshawottLuke]

Yup Dusk Ball is the best, love using it in HG, Platinum, the gen 5 games. Basically in every game where they exist. They're just so broken. And even better, they have one of if not the best special animation when a Pokémon comes out of them. That darkness thing fits perfectly well for basically every Pokémon. A scary mon? Darkness fits them. A cute mon? Darkness fits them too because it's lika a contrast thing. The mon has dark colors? It fits. Bright colors? It fits because it creates contrast. Black goes well with everything.

[@invenblocker]

Ok, but you didn't adress how rhythmically tapping the L and R buttons increases the catch rates in the Gen III games. My friend at the playground told me about that trick, so I've got it on pretty good authority that it works.

[@pluspiping]

Catching in Gen 3: "I bet you thought this was always how it worked, huh? Well, it does now!"

[@jjthepikazard212]

yr breakdowns are very interesting. learning about the actual math behind the games is v cool

[@PokeMaster22222]

9:07 Well, there's a funny thing about Quick Balls; see, Gen 4 has a few special Pokémon, like Cresselia, Mesprit, Entei and Raikou, that can be lowered to 1 HP and put to sleep, and still get that 4x catch rate with Quick Balls. Because these special Legendaries are roamers, and while any encounter of them is the start of a "new" battle, they retain any damage and status effects previously inflicted. So it's not impossible to get that 4x with the 2x sleep and the ?x damage bonuses.

[@LechuKawaii]

"Let's take a look at Kurt's balls" I would have worded that differently, but ok

[@apawture]

yes yes yes YES YES GEN 3 HOURS LETS GO (i love hoenn so much so im very stoked to see you dissect the games and explain in detail how all of it works) also finally got around to giving u money on patreon!

[@Lyra]

Thank you for the Patreon support! I am happy that you enjoy the content that much :'D

[@Muchenaft]

In my first Sapphire playthrought, I used all my Ultra ball on a very low HP rayquaza (pretty sure he had like no attacks left or close to it), then had no more balls and used a timer ball (it was clearly over the 30th turn lol), and catch it directly... Actually I never really used the special balls before that, I thought that they would be bad so it was quite a funny surprise xD

[@stagelights_]

dusk ball is especially good in pokemon moon and ultra moon if you're a day player, as time is offset by 12 hours, so when its broad daylight outside in real life, in game its midnight. there's also the altar of the sunne/moone in the postgame of both sun and moon, which let you change the current time by 12 hours no matter what, so you can always be at a time when dusk ball is most effective.

[@theduskullsociety8095]

Finally someone that understand that the Dusk Ball being so great

[@GimmeMyHandleBack]

Just watched this little series, and I was glad to see it go from THE patron to all of the patrons.

[@annonono]

I just LOVE these mechanics video! You found a niche, my friend. Hope your channel grow big!

[@kaitogirldraws]

What a great video!! Now I want a Gen 3 living dex video. It's my favorite Gen, so I'd love to see it. Great work, I'm amazed by your time and effort put into this

[@lanestonesvlogs]

I love these videos, I would love to see the rest of the Gens as well that'd be cool asf

[@captainkael1]

Great video as always Lyra!

[@JeremyHamel]

Thank you for making these videos. I love learning about the topics in your content.

[@belairmp3130]

I got all the gen 3 pokemon games BOXED from Buyee and now I'm looking to get the gen 4 & 5 ones

[@researchinbreeder]

I think it's interesting that casual fans think Level has a direct impact on catch chance, when it doesn't. Though in gen 3+, it does have a tertiary effect due to the HP calculation getting marginally better at higher levels. Assuming catch rate and ball mod of 1 for simplicity, the catch rate is: (3*Max-2*Cur)/(3*Max). At 1 hp, it evaluates to 29/30 with 20 maximum, and 299/300 with 200. Consequently, higher max HP Pokemon, such as higher levels, are _easier_ to catch by a marginal amount.

[@llSuperSnivyll]

Which is funny because, starting in Gen 8, level DOES have an impact on catch rate - before getting all badges, if the wild Pokémon is of a higher level than your active Pokémon, the catch chance is cut by 90%.

[@ZewingFZC]

You make awesome videos, always love learning more about pokemon mechanics

[@Kite403]

I really love your breakdown videos of pokemon programming! Keep it up

[@Snolferd]

For the formula around the 4:00 minute mark a more clear way to write it is to replace the two squareroots with a single quadratic root ∜, this way everyone can see the formula can be solved by dividing what is beneath the ∜, solving that quadratic root and then dividing again for the answer. Plus it looks more professional, in academic papers you probably won't see 2 square roots on top of each other.

[@danielvandenberg3228]

I think for the purpose of completing the dex quick balls are the best. They've saved me so much time and it only costs 1 turn if it fails I imagine money and party HP aren't a concern for people who have moved on to the goal of filling the dex. Quick balls are basically master balls for pre-evolved mons with a high catch rate.

[@Lyra]

For sure! When I play Gen 3, I will absolutely be abusing Quick Balls! Here, I was thinking of the harder to catch Pokémon, but I guess I never mentioned it. Oops.

[@djcleveland9192]

10:30 I laughed when you said let's take a look at Kurt's balls

[@tedscheett9420]

I love the use of sprites to make a bit of humor.

[@iron-mage]

I've been searching for info on catching in gen 3 since i saw ur last videos on gens 1 & 2 :D

[@Petruslol]

I love those explanation videos, keep up the good work!

[@winterdoggo]

Oh man, this video for some reason really takes me back to TheJwittz's older Pokémon videos (fact/top 10 era). It's a nice information video, and it isn't overly complicated but has personality. Not to mention calling out Kurt for not being able to design his balls right has stuck in my head after all these years haha I don't mean that you don't have your own identity - you've got your own angle for going at things, and tend to go deeper into the exact specifics in how things work. But Jwittz was a big part of Pokémon youtube a solid 10 years ago and I thought it was cool to see something a bit like it in the 20's :)

[@Frank_Erz]

Fun fact: In gen 4 Dusk Balls don't work in caves while surfing. Not sure about at night.

[@andrewwolff7592]

Was about to try and catch Lugia in SoulSilver while I was watching this. Caught it with my first Heavy Ball. Thanks for the info!!!

[@psuedonym9999]

I also caught my Lugia in SoulSilver with a Heavy Ball.

[@outtatime9836]

I am going for astrophysics and that root on root action had me rolling.

[@TheRenaSystem]

very much worth the wait, great vid!

[@cameronscanlan1620]

Big fan of these deep dives into the mechanics and code of the games. Especially gen 3.

[@pokepress]

Would be nice to see some graphs that show how the catch rate changes based on the amount of HP remaining. While reducing to 1 HP does give the highest probability, it isn’t necessarily the most time-efficient strategy since it may require additional turns.

[@empoleonmaster6709]

Could you do a video on all the obscure locations that do and don’t count as “caves” for dusk balls?

[@CheekyBeef317]

10:30 “Let’s take a look at Kurt’s balls”

[@AceManning18]

I really like these nerdy catch em all videos for the older gens. Thanks for the content lyra.

[@revenevan11]

I wasted so much time trying to use Kurt's apricorn Quickball on the roaming legendaries in silver version. Still bitter about that, but the mysteries in that game from all the things that would scare those pokemon off to the ruins of alph and opening secret chambers with them based on what my older friends told me to spell with the party were so cool lol. It was the days before I could just google stuff of course, so it did get much more time consuming and frustrating than it all needed to be... but to this day I enjoy knowledge games without looking up spoilers (like Noita) and paradoxically I also love overanalyzing game mechanics like this vid and your gen2 broken catch mechanics vid 😅😁👍

[@TheParabolicPanda]

Great video friendo! It's cool seeing the math involved in the older games.

[@yeah_definitely]

I just got the national dex in Brilliant Diamond to unlock shaymin and this video pops up... perfect.

[@Lyra]

Hope you enjoy it! Be careful though, some multipliers have changed since Gen 3 and 4.

[@Magmafrost13]

Not gonna lie I always assumed the wobbles were a lie, I had no idea they were ever anything other than flavour

[@tym6217]

I would often times find myself using inefficient balls to catch certain pokemon just because I liked the ball's design or its "poof" animation effect it did upon opening.

[@sagacious03]

Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@strawberrysherbet4847]

I love your videos! They’re informative and well put together. I’m always excited for a new upload!

[@DistalSoul]

“Let’s take a look at Kurt’s balls”

[@rinus915]

I always trade masterballs from my hacked soulsilver dave file when i hunt a shiny in gen 4.

[@mathematicsreadinggroup7288]

This formula makes more sense if you cancel the max hp in the fraction and put the other variables off on the side. Then you get (1 - 2/3 (current hp/max hp))(CR)(ball)(status), and surely that makes more sense? The first number is a number which goes from 1/3 when it's full HP to 1 when it's just about dead. So basically it's a linear function of the percentage of HP that the target has remaining. Everything else is modifiers which boost that number in certain circumstances.

[@ShawFujikawa]

If I remember correctly, the Heavy Ball’s negative catch rate modifier actually makes it 100% impossible to catch Beldum with them, to the point that if you saw a Beldum inside one, it was definitely hacked.

[@lucarioshipper4498]

Late, but this is only partly true. Heavy Ball Beldum can be legal since USUM thanks to Rotom Dex's Bonus capture rate cupon.

[@Omega_2]

I use Dive Ball for everything that doesn't belong in it. Maths can't tell me otherwise.

[@toriofthestarpalace]

Kurt's Pokeballs are designed about as well as Gen 1 Pokemon. They don't crash and burn, which is extremely admirable, but... The alternative isn't very good either if you happen to know what's going on!

[@RowanTS]

It’s probably useful to have all the ‘not available pokemon/balls’ data too considering most old games are played with randomisers etc. where this knowledge is at its most useful.

[@GreyVictory1510]

Man, that title brings back memories. At least Pokemon catch formulas don't need exploits on the level of Super Mario Maker glitches. Surprisingly simple, truly.

[@mysteryninja354]

If I were to include Kurt (or a Kurt stand-in) in another pokemon game, I'd have all the unique balls he can make work at the same catch rate as great balls, but if conditions are met, boost friendship of the pokemon in question. This still relegates them to being 90% for vanity's sake, since friendship boosts are not really that difficult to achieve, but it would spare the frustration of these "specialized" pokeballs not working as advertised.

[@scorcher117]

“It does not matter if the HP is green, yellow or red, there is no threshold” That one sentence is probably going to have the most impact on me in the future, I had always wondered but never confirmed it so I would always try to chip a pokemon into that next colour just incase that was what was needed.

[@Meewthree]

It's so cool to hear how this all works!

[@Wizzkidwas]

I love these videos, I get excited when I see them

[@notNajimi]

Repeat balls, timer balls, and fast balls can have utility for shiny hunters and dex completionists. Timer balls are great for legendary catching since catches can run long enough for the 4x rate to kick in, fast balls are great on HGSS’s roamers as they all have 100+ base speed, and repeat balls are just a nice upgrade to ultra balls if your dex is complete or mostly filled.

[@coopergreil6235]

I had to figure this stuff out on my own by consulting a few different websites but I did just complete a living dex up thru Gen 5. The Dusk and quick balls were my best friends, with probably a third of my living dex being caught in quick balls. But lemme tell you, catching Kyogre in Heartgold was a real test. Turns out that putting it at very low HP (incredibly difficult to do when it knows Aqua Ring), putting it to sleep, and using a CHAD heavy ball gives you a 1 in 4 chance of catching it. So yeah. Heavy ball is totally busted on the Weather Trio.

[@ectophasm8216]

glad that the apricorn balls will and always will be the weirdest things on earth! if you're going to try to fill out the gens 3+4 living dex and onward, may i recommend a breloom? it's like parasect, with both false swipe and spore, but with a higher base stat total (higher atk, equal sp. atk, and higher speed), one less 4x weakness, and, in gen 4, if you're willing to get a toxic orb, it can heal indefinitely with poison heal, which goes a long way in longer battles!

[@Lyra]

Gen 4 has an even better catching specialist, but for Gen 3, Breloom is looking like one of the top candidates for sure! Thank you for the Toxic Orb tip :')

[@Yuzuki1337]

@@Lyra Is it Scizor for gen4? :o

[@hoaujudaiyubel]

@@Yuzuki1337 no it's gallade Hypnosis False swipe Mean look Trick

[@SirNichosis]

Great video bud 👍🏻👍🏻

[@aajjeee]

At 4:08 the double roor espression can be simplified to ~1.57% of the 4th root of catch rate Since this caclulation is done 4 times the capture strenght over 4 rolls, is final catch rate/~16517612

[@renakunisaki]

Queue a bunch of people wildly speculating about how due to some edge case in the calculation the Master Ball could fail. (It can't. It bypasses all the calculations.)

[@greenhowie]

I'm playing through Emerald on my phone at work and this is shockingly useful.

[@thatcloveplant]

yesss- i love these videos sooo much- so eccitged for the rest of them!

[@mini8964]

Never knew current hp was so specific to the equation, I always assumed it worked in ranges

[@KBroly]

As a longtime Pokemon fan, learning about the inner workings of Pokemon is great. Gen 9 really has me leaning towards Dusk Balls. I usually just went for Ultras.

[@mintsushi9598]

10:00 "there is one final type of ball we need to talk about"

[@leesparkles9518]

I've been replaying Soul Silver and was absolutely confused when I caught Lugia with a dusk ball waiting for the point to use an timer ball. Utterly OP.

[@droozyyy]

Thank you for affirming my quick ball turn 1 then dusk ball everything strategy

[@Drxxyt]

Great video I would love to know more about how damage is calculated or likeliness of other aspects of pokemon, etc. keep up the great worl

[@azazel166]

Dusk Ball is my favorite, because it looks like the ones Mewtwo used to catch already caught Pokemon.

[@Minecraftgnom]

0:54 Gotta say, that formular was arranged to look a lot more complicated that it actually is, technically only being multiplications, not even needing the brackets...

[@orbracha25]

Gen V made the quick ball genuinely great, 5x the catch rate is really high, so it ends up being extremely effective for most Pokémon even without lowering their hp and giving them status conditions, it's also just really convenient because it ends battles quickly

[@gumballwatterson6786]

For me, the length of the video could be 57 seconds, but I watched it fully and I liked it

[@AegisCrusader]

Very interesting! I enjoyed watching.

[@Buzterer]

Someone needs to make like an album cover for the heavy ball gang

[@sirwolfy9372]

There is a MEME about the other professors yelling at Lannete due to her logical thinking about the storage system looool

[@OshawottLuke]

When I was playing HG in 2019 and catching everything, I calculated that I think the Level Ball was a Master Ball for Numel in the Ilex Forest. And then it wasn't and I didn't understand why. I had to search a lot until I found someone saying somewhere that the apricorn balls only modify the catch rate of the mon itself, not the ball modifier like other balls. So most of them are basically shit or some other regular balls are just better, like the Ultra Ball being a x2. Especially the Level Ball since it works better in low level mons but the vast majority of low level mons in the games are mons with extremely high catch rates, sometimes even the maximum, so a level ball will most of the time be worse than a Great Ball that is just a x1.5. Especially when you only get to use these balls in the Johto remakes, and then we didn't have them until USUM or something. So frustrating for no reason that they modify the catch rate instead of the ball modifier like all the other balls, because they go from good options to mostly bad options that may be better in extremely few cases, and to know if it's better you have to do the formula because it's not as easy as just knowing that one ball is a x3 while another ball is a x2. And you have to look up the catch rate of individual mons every time you want to use an apricorn ball or you may be using something that is even worse than a great ball. And at that point you'll just never use them. So something extremely unique and cool of the johto remakes basically disappears since you'll never use it, and all because they had to make them affect the catch rate for no reason.

[@Kali_Krause]

Aww yeah! Pomeg glitch inbound :) Also, I caught Giratina with a Dusk Ball 💖

[@treyparkerofficial]

Babe wake up new Lyra vid just dropped