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Pokemon Go: Easiest and hardest Pokemon to catch

Published Aug 10th, 2016 1:37PM EDT
Hardest Pokemon to Catch Pokemon Go
Image: Jacob Siegal | BGR

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Although Pokemon Go bares only a passing resemblance to the original handheld Pokemon games, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: rare Pokemon are still incredibly difficult to catch. There’s nothing more stressful than finding a Lapras or a Venusaur and then realizing you only have a few Poke Balls left.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to get around this — it’s just part of the game. But at the very least, you can know beforehand which Pokemon are more likely to give you trouble than others.

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Last week, Tech Insider shared a video citing a group of Reddit users who dug into the game’s code and found base capture rates for every Pokemon in the game:

Here are some of the most important findings:

  • Magikarp are the easiest Pokemon to catch with a 56% capture rate
  • Oddish are the second easiest with a 48% capture rate
  • Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey and Rattata have 40% capture rates
  • Blastoise, Charizard, Venosaur and Dragonite each have a 4% capture rate
  • Legendary Pokemon (Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos, Mewtwo and Mew) all have 0% capture rates, which means there will likely be a unique way to obtain them

As Tech Insider points out, base capture rate isn’t the only factor that decides whether or not your toss is successful. The Pokemon’s CP level and flee rate also come into play, as well as your throwing accuracy and whether or not you use a Razz Berry before you toss a Poke Ball at the creature.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.