"Systematically increasing your catch rates for Legendaries (It's not Luck!)"

#PokemonGO: https://youtu.be/KKF6vXJO98g <-----video version here. Is there a way to embed this?.It’s too often I see the disappointment from people after a failed attempt at catching a Legendary, followed by the blame solely on luck (or lack thereof). The following post will show you that having a high catch rate is more systematic than you think, and how to apply these to your own catch attempts. These techniques are used both from myself, as well as the collective high-level pogo community.Have PatienceSince patience is the precursor to many of these proceeding techniques, it’s at the highest level of importance. You have one (free) chance per day to capture a Legendary. You spend hours waiting for one to pop up at a nearby gym, walk to it in the blistering heat, coordinate with a group to beat it, while having all the lag time in between. After all that, at the moment of finally having the chance to capture it, it doesn’t make sense to chuck balls as fast as you can. Spend the extra few minutes to properly throw your balls. Again, remember that patience is key going forward.Timed ThrowsThrow ONLY after the attack animation, no exceptions. Predictability is your friend for two reasons. Firstly, Raikou jumps and attacks way too often for you to just throw a ball and pray that he doesn’t jump/block it. The start of the attack animation is signaled by a quick flash on the pokemon. It lasts for exactly 2 seconds and during these two seconds, balls will be blocked if it hits anywhere on the pokemon. It takes roughly 0.5 to 1 second for the ball’s airtime travel once released from the throw. Once the attack animation has finished, there _should be a time window of about half a second where you’re immune to another successive jump or attack, and this is when you want the ball to hit. If your throw is released at 1.5 seconds into the attack, then it should hit right as the attack duration is finished. By waiting for the attack animation, you now have a reference point of when to throw your ball so you can guarantee a hit (given that you have the accuracy).Secondly, waiting for the attack animation will also allow you to throw the ball and hit at a predetermined circle size. Sure, you can hold (or keep spinning) the ball until the circle shrinks down to the desired size then throw right away. But if you do it that way, you’re throwing based on circle size, when there is a high uncertainty of the pokemon jumping/attacking. Furthermore, you will want to isolate "sizing your circle" (will elaborate on this later) and the actual throw into separate steps so that you can focus on your throw accuracy. The ONLY way to ensure that the pokemon won't jump/attack, AND have the exact circle size you want to aim for, is to wait for the attack animation. Be patient, wait for the attack before throwing!Stacking “multipliers”This is the core to increasing your catch chances. Any factors that directly influences the catch probability equation does so with a "multiplier". These factors include the type of balls used (in this case, only Premium Ball), size of the circle when hit, the type of razzberry used, curveballs, and medals. Any multiplier value applied essentially gives you the effect of throwing more than 1 ball per throw. For example, a curveball has a multiplier of 1.7. If you throw a curvball and it hits, this is equivalent of throwing 1.7 straight balls. The rest of the multiplier values are listed on the table below.The difference between 1.0 and 1.7 is seemingly small. However multipliers work synergistically together once you start stacking them. Each multiplier gets applied to ALL other multipliers. To illustrate this, hitting the best theoretical throw (smallest circle Excellent, golden razzberry, curve, with gold medal) will give you an equivalent of 11 balls thrown (2.5 x 2 x 1.7 x 1.3). But if you do all the above but throw a straight instead of a curveball, this is the equivalent of only 6.5 balls thrown (2.5 x 2 x 1 x 1.3). You can see that the curvball by itself is only worth an additional 0.7 throws if nothing else is applied, but that same curve factor just gave you an additional 4.5 equivalent balls if all other multipliers were used! This is why it's imperative that you don't leave any multipliers out of the throw. Bonus TypeMultiplierPremium Ball1.0pokeball1.0Great ball1.5Ultra ball2.0Razz berry1.5Golden berry2.5Curveball1.7bronze medal1.1silver medal1.2gold medal1.3   ThrowMultiplier (2-r)Nice1.0 - 1.3Great1.3 - 1.7Excellent1.7 - 2.0 Premium ballsThere is no way to increase your multiplier from ball selection. You're forced to use premium balls for raid bosses. So although it doesn't have any influences to the catch multiplier equation, having many throws is just as important has having a high catch probability per throw.berriesThere should be no reason why you should use a Nanab berry. It does not increase your catch multiplier. It will also cause Raikou to attack much less frequently, which is NOT what you want. Attack animation gives you a reference point to throw (refer back to "timed throws"). Using a Golden Razz is the single-most thing you can do that has the largest effect on direct catch rate. Use these sparingly and only when it counts (high IV or if it's the last few days and you haven't caught a certain Legendary yet). Normal Razz should be the bulk of the berry feeding, as these are relatively easy to get and still has a pretty decent multiplier increase.curveballsAlthough curving your balls may not be worth much XP, they significantly help with catch rate. If you don't know how to throw curveballs, learn it for the longrun. It's easier to throw a curveball that hit anywhere, than it is to throw an Excellent straight ball (both of these have about the same catch rate multiplier).medalsCatching 10, 50, and 200 pokemons of that same type will earn you your the bronze, silver, and gold medals, respectively. This isn't a mechanic that can be learned, so grind away until you reach these medal increments.Throw BonusThrow accuracy is arguably the most skill-related element of the game. Throwing at random will also mean your Nice, Great, or Excellents will be at random, and so will your catch bonus multiplier. Instead, be more methodical with your throws and size your circle radius. The technique to "sizing your circle radius":First hold down your ball. As long as you're touching the ball, the circle size will start at the largest radius, shrinking down to the smallest radius, then resets and starts the loop over. As it's shrinking, time it until it shrinks down to the desirable size, then let go of your finger (rather than throwing it!). The circle size is now "frozen" at the same size as when you let go of the ball. But this condition only holds true if the ball is tossed between the 2 second window when the pokemon attacks. If it's thrown outside of this attack window, the circle size will be at random again.A Nice throw is when the raidus is 70% - 100% of the largest radius possible, Great is 30% - 70%, and excellent is 1% - 30% of the largest circle size. Also a good tidbit to know is that not all Great throws are the same. You'll have a slightly higher catch chance throwing a Great with a smaller circle than a Great with a larger circle. Same thing applies to Nice and Excellents. So size the radius according to what you're comfortable with, not the break points of each. Sizing this circle radius is a controllable way to aim for Nice, Greats, or Excellents, which takes us to the next section.Aim for Nice or Great throws, not Excellents!Be real with yourself. Don't overestimate your throwing abilities. Size the circle to the smallest circle that you can hit almost every time. Repeatability and consistency over time will net you a higher catch rate than hitting a few Excellents but missing most. Here's why:With the throw bonus multiplier of 2-r, you can see that throw bonus is inversely proportional to the circle’s radius (where “r” is the radius with a maximum of an arbitrary 1.0 unit). The circle shrinks smoothly, not incrementally. The area of the circle is πr2 units. From these two simple equation, you can see that as the radius smoothly shrinks, the bonus multiplier linearly increases but the allowable area where you must hit decreases exponentially.So what does all this math mumble jumble mean? The risk of missing a small circle is not worth the reward from hitting it, UNLESS it’s well within your ability to consistently hit it. So to start, size the largest Nice, move down to a smaller Nice, then large Greats, smaller Greats, eventually into the Excellent territory. Only move down to a smaller circle size after you can correctly freeze and hit that same circle size almost every ball.Phone selection mattersUnfortunately, PoGo will not be the same experience on every phone. Higher end phones have better hardware, resulting in a smoother play experience. With a subpar phone, the CPU and GPU cannot process or render images fast enough, so there will be slight delays in response time or even worst, graphical tearing and/or image frames being skipped. This is a pretty big deal when it comes to throw accuracy. However, your phone shouldn't be the scapegoat if you have bad mechanics or just an inaccurate thrower. Personally, I use a Sony X Compact. It has a very noticeable graphical latency, but I've learned to compensate for this delay. But when frames are skipped, then sometimes I will throw a complete airball. The iPhone 6 that I sometimes use is not hardware-limted in this same way. In general, iOS seems to perform better than android because of Unity platform. Lastly, screen size also matters. Larger screens up to a certain point, will be inherently be easier to throw more accurately because you have more granular control over a larger area.In closingOnce you've internalized these techniques, you'll realize that it's really just a few simple things that will boost your chances, as long as you're consistent with it in every throw. Any time probability is involved, there will always be an element of luck. But don't stretch the luck aspect so far as to say it's all luck, because you're more in control of the results than you might believe. Since Premium Balls are valuable, practice these techniques on junk pokemons first to see how you fare. Hope this will help, have fun, and good luck (technique)!PS - how do I embed the youtube video linked at the beginning? How do I also change this thread's icon? Sorry, first post on reddit so still learning how this works. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2wF6iJQ