Pokémon Catch Rate Calculator: Find Your Catch Probability

Every wild pokemon has something called catch rate, in short, code that tells you the chance to successfully catch it. Imagine it as a measure of trouble. Those values range from 3 to 255.

The bigger the number the simpler it is to catch the monster. Your typical early pokemon, like Caterpie, Weedle or Pidgey, all have 255, which gives around a 44 percent chance to catch them at full health with a normal Poké Ball. But legendary pokemon?

How Pokémon catch rate works and how to catch them

Here everything changes. Most of them sit at 3, which makes them really hard to catch.

The Destructive Quartet slightly breaks that rule. They have a catch rate of 6, which makes them the first pokemon that reaches exactly that value. It stays challenging, but actually less severe than a tyipcal legendary.

Many factors affect whether you actually succeed in the capture. The species of the pokemon matters, clearly. Also its remaining points of health, whether it suffers a status condition and…

This is key. That Poké Ball you throw. Pokemon with fewer HP give better chances.

There is an ideal at around a third of the health, where the calculations reach maximum and go down know any more. Ultra Ball works a bit differently (for that), the bonus reaches peak at half of the health. Here moves like False Swipe help, because it always leaves the target at exactly 1 HP.

Status conditions play an important role here too. Paralysis and sleep are your best tools for raising the catch rate chances. Burn and poison work okay, although they constantly drain the health as a side effect.

So we arrive at the Ball itself. The Ultra Ball doubles your chances according to the catch rate formula. Choosing the right Ball can really change the situation.

Take Gyarados, its catch rate is around 12 percent, and even lowering its health does not change much, when one starts from such a low base.

From Generation 8 onward, a new element appears. If the pokemon that you try to catch has a higher level than your team, the game adds a special penalty that heavily lowers your chances. Sword and Shield introduced this to specifically stop players easily catching those strong wanderers in the wild area.

In Legends: Arceus and newer games like Scarlet and Violet, catch rate calculators are plenty online to help you exactly estimate the chances. Back attacks in those games almost double your catch rate value, that is huge. The real formula considers the maximum health of the creature, its current health, the basic catch rate and any bonus from the Ball that you use.

Each pokemon has a base catch rate between 0 and 255, and the game does the math every time you throwa Ball.

Some legendary pokemon received changes over the years. Mewtwo climbed from 3 to 20. Latias, Groudon and some others jumped to 45.

Catching them was never meant to be easy, but those changes slightly helped to smooth the process.