"The Bad Thrower's Guide to 3 Excellents in a Row"

#PokemonGO: TL;DR: everything in bold font below.I'm a bad thrower. So bad that I have a <50% caught/seen ratio on all raid legendaries except for Rayquaza (and I typically get 10-12 premier balls).Nevertheless, I managed to complete the "Make 3 Excellent Throws in a row" task and therefore I have some (obvious) tips to share.1) Look for easy targets, especially for the 2nd and 3rd throw.Sure, it's possible to get 3 Excellents in a row on Weedle and Rattata. But it's very unlikely.If your Excellent chance is 1 in 10, you'll get 3 Excellents in a row in 1 case out of 1000. If your Excellent chance is 1 in 5, you'll get 3 Excellents in a row in 1 case out of 125, i.e. 8 times more likely.My favorites were: the obvious Wailmer, Ursaring, Sudowoodo (the latter attacks so rarely that you don't even need a Nanab, see point 2)), Nosepass and Exeggutor (raid boss or wild Alolan).Quite good were also Pinsir, Lileep, Aipom and the regionals Mr. Mime and Zangoose (Australians say Kangaskhan is good too).In general, several evolved forms are quite large and therefore relatively easy: Ninetales, Machamp, Piloswine, Loudred, Raticate.And then, among common/nesting/quest species, I got several excellents on Doduo, Ponyta, Onix, Slowpoke, Zigzagoon, Murkrow, Roselia, Skitty, Baltoy, Sentret, Krabby, Jynx, Ledyba, Machop, Drowzee, Koffing, Spheal.2) Use Nanab Berries on 2nd and 3rd throws.If you are good at setting the circle, this post isn't for you. But I'm a bad thrower and I can't time my throws so well. So I just spin the ball until the circle is the right size and then throw.Of course a deflected throw breaks the streak. So once I got my first Excellent, I used Nanabs to avoid jumps and dodges.By the way, excellent Silph Road Research article on how encountered Pokémon jump and deflect balls.3) Don't expect to complete the research in 5 minutes.It took me 17 days. But 7 (or 14) Larvitar candies may be worth the wait.Of course it will clog one (or two) of your 3 research task slots, so don't keep it if you can farm higher-priority research tasks much faster.But in my opinion a Larvitar is the best single reward we currently have. (We can discuss about making room for many Rare Candy quests.)Minor tips:Use red balls, no Razz/Golden Razz Berries, and possibly straight throws. You don't want to catch the target, but possibly have multiple chances with the same (easy) target. That's one reason why hard-to-catch Nosepass, Sudowoodo and Ursaring are great.If you can get 2 copies of the quest, you get double reward for the same effort. I got 2 copies of the quest and I got 2 Larvitar instead of 1, using the same streak. Of course keep in mind that you then only have one free slot for Rare Candy quests or for doing at least one quest per day.On the 2nd and 3rd throw, be patient and focused. Improving the 2nd and 3rd throw even by a little can get your chances much higher.Even if you fail, you have become a better thrower. I have probably thrown more Excellents in the 17 days of the quest than in the whole previous year. Now I catch most Nosepass on the first throw just using a red ball.Hat tip to u/DrThod_PokemonGo, u/X-lem and u/NoLucksGiven for their posts about throwing quests. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/8oi86d/the_bad_throwers_guide_to_3_excellents_in_a_row/?utm_source=ifttt