Tough Captures

[Ryanasaur]

We all have gone through the trials of catching legendaries or trying to catch a scythed in the safari zone with those pesky safari balls. It's frustrating and challenging but the payoff is the best.

So, which pokemon in any of the games have been challenging for you to catch? Which ones have you never even attempted to catch because you know they're tough to find?

As for me -- I haven't tried to catch Feebas yet... But I just spent 1 hour and 22 minutes in a new playthrough of Emerald while trying to find Seedot on route 102.
Long story short... Caught 2 ralts and traded one for a seedot in Rustboro.

 

[Nah]

I never knew how to catch Feebas in Gen 3 until years later.....and never bothered to ever try after hearing how horrible it is. Never really bothered with the rare Safari pokes like Chansey and such either.

Also never went out of my way to catch Cyrogonal in Gen V. Somehow I got lucky and one appeared, despite the 1% chance of appearing. I was just kinda passin' through Twist Mountain.

More recently there was when I captured Zekrom on Alpha Sapphire. Was trying to go for a specific nature and do it in a Luxury Ball. But Synchronize's 50% chance was not kind to me. And you can't paralyze Zekrom and I was too lazy to bring a Pokemon that could put it to sleep. And so many hours and soft resets later I finally got it in a Luxury Ball with the nature I was going for.

 

[Pendraflare]

And speaking of Cryogonal's 1% chance, I remember when I was playing White in the autumn time in-game, and I ran into THREE Cryogonal in just five encounters. With that 1% chance. Sadly, I was playing a Wedlocke (that was a year ago), so I couldn't catch them because they were genderless. Even then they probably would have eaten my Poké Balls :P

 

[fenyx4]

The usual Legendary Pokemon, I guess (of Generation 3, mainly the Legendary Golems/the Regis and the Legendary Dogs come to mind) - par for the course. Feebas and Chimecho took ages to actually track down (and Lati@s to an extent), but the actual captures weren't too hard. The Legendary Dogs (Entei and Raikou, particularly; haven't faced Suicune in any Pokemon FireRed Version game file yet) of Generation 3 were particularly a hassle - due to the Roaming Roar glitch, you either have to get very lucky before they use Roar or you have to meticulously set up your Pokemon team in a way to negate both fleeing and Roar (all for naught, since they have bad IVs anyway due to another glitch... sigh).

And OHMYGOSH, CHANSEY (and Tauros) - mostly speaking from Kanto Safari Zone experience! >:( I honestly don't know how past Trainers managed with that low encounter rate in the Safari Zone without any of the Emerald!Hoenn Safari Zone perks like overworld Synchronize usage and the Pokeblock feeders (and you are just blessed if you manage to snag a wild Chansey holding a Lucky Egg). I still don't know how I managed to catch a Chansey in the Safari Zone (I think I caught a Tauros too? Not sure offhead..).

 

[Ryanasaur]

And OHMYGOSH, CHANSEY (and Tauros) - mostly speaking from Kanto Safari Zone experience! >:( I honestly don't know how past Trainers managed with that low encounter rate in the Safari Zone without any of the Emerald!Hoenn Safari Zone perks like overworld Synchronize usage and the Pokeblock feeders (and you are just blessed if you manage to snag a wild Chansey holding a Lucky Egg). I still don't know how I managed to catch a Chansey in the Safari Zone (I think I caught a Tauros too? Not sure offhead..).

A Tauros AND a Chansey in one go... I might need to steal you for good luck. I actually forgot about Tauros. The bug pokemon in Kanto Safari (Pinsir and Scyther) were always hard to find but I found them relatively easy to actually capture.

 

[fenyx4]

A Tauros AND a Chansey in one go... I might need to steal you for good luck. I actually forgot about Tauros. The bug pokemon in Kanto Safari (Pinsir and Scyther) were always hard to find but I found them relatively easy to actually capture.

Oh, sorry :P - I'm not sure off memory if both of the captures (one of Chansey, one potentially of Tauros) occurred during the exact same Safari run, although I wouldn't be surprised since I usually spend a good chunk of time in Safari Zones whenever I decide to visit them for "capturing sessions". XD

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On a side note, while I'm ecstatic that Deoxys is no longer event-exclusive in Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, I'm not looking forward to the difficulty in capturing it (although, bring it on!) If I recall correctly, something about its moveset (the battle immediately after capturing Rayquaza and battling Zinnia in the Delta Episode) did not seem fun to go up against at that point in the game; I've read that it's better to postpone the Deoxys battle..? XD :~ (never mind resetting for things such as Nature with assistance from the Synchronize overworld perk).

 

[Sebastian_Sommer]

I find N's pokemon in BW2 to be the hardest to catch, mostly because these guys have low encounter rate. I caught most of them due to repel exploits and EV training.

 

[Nidorina of Time Lord]

Skarmory is a pain in the butt to catch, but I had to catch my own because I just couldn't bond with the ones I got through WT. It took me at least 10 minutes to catch one that was even weak!

 

[Zoroark Cutie]

I would say either Zygarde or Cresselia in BW2. Both of them have one thing in common and that was that I spent at least 2 hours trying to catch each one. By the time I went to go capture Zygarde, all my most useful Pokemon were either slightly or way higher leveled and my other Pokemon were too underleveled, also not a single one knew a move to put Zygarde to sleep. First time I almost used up every single one of my Pokeballs (I literally had like 20 left, and I was stocked up with at least 150 when I went to capture it.), and when I decided to attack it just to weaken it just a bit more, I got a crit and accidentally caused it to faint, which caused me to reset and try the entire battle all over again. Cresselia on the other hand was the same thing, except my Pokemon were around the same as it, I had a lot more Pokeballs, and I had to also retry two times (First time was by accident, second time was by a crit).

 

[LusoTrainer]

I make a point of only using Poké Balls (except in Safari Zone, obviously), so the legendary birds were a pain to catch. Specially Articuno.

Tauros and Kangaskhan were hard to get as well.

 

[Drayton]

You want to catch zygrade easily, bring some duskballs that I always do when catching mewtwo or zygrade there.

I think mewtwo was hardest to captured for me, but bless by hex I one-shot captured it with a duskballs

 

[Migit78]

Electabuzz, in R/B/Y - my god.
I've finished the national dex in every generation of the game.
But about 3 years ago I restarted pokemon red, to recatch all original 151.
I have 150 pokes on it. Can not get Electabuzz, I have something like 170 game time hours on this new save, and a good 100 of it is strolling around outside the powerplant still havent seen 1 electabuzz.

 

[ugtgrime]

A Staryu. Any game I play. I'll be lucky if I don't go through a good 30 great balls. Although Legendary wise the worst for me was Groudon in ruby. 99 Ultra balls, 50 great balls and 20 timer balls later I succeeded.

 

[Wicked3DS]

No matter what game it's in, Mewtwo always seems to be the one that trips me up every single time.

 

[JJ Styles]

Virizon. Out of all the muskedeers, this one was always the more frustrating one to catch. It has Giga Drain for its sustain and as always the Sacred Sword which unlike Terrakion's or even Cobalion's, Virizion doesn't hit as hard. But still with its good defenses and Giga Drain, this deer was always annoying for me to catch. And I can't even wall it with a flying type else i might misclick that Aerial Ace and OHKO it because of its quad weakness to flying.

Zangoose in Y. Oh dear lord. Every time it appeared on a Horde encounter, those Sevipers were always ready to knock it out and deny me of that elusive "out-of-version" exclusive. The frustrating part is that those Sevipers are spamming WRAP of all things at it, which may deal little damage, but that's still continious residual damage that every chip of health mattered, especially on those random times a wrap would crit out of nowhere and still that poor Zangoose was still under wrap's effects.

On a side note, while I'm ecstatic that Deoxys is no longer event-exclusive in Pokemon OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire, I'm not looking forward to the difficulty in capturing it (although, bring it on!) If I recall correctly, something about its moveset (the battle immediately after capturing Rayquaza and battling Zinnia in the Delta Episode) did not seem fun to go up against at that point in the game; I've read that it's better to postpone the Deoxys battle..? XD :~ (never mind resetting for things such as Nature with assistance from the Synchronize overworld perk).

Pretty much. If you really wanted that perfect nature and IV Deoxys for later use, going through all of that crud with the Ray catching and the Zinnia battle, and all of those cutscenes, not to mention still getting the perfect 6IV Jolly Rayquaza, you are better off just knocking it out and getting it later. I learned it all the hard way... It wasn't fun, and I already sacrificed sleep just to finish the Delta Episode and get my own Jolly 6IV Ray...

Spoiler:

And because you pretty much start the battle with the Mega Evolved Ray anyway, and because that Deoxys is pretty much ultra squishy, that freshly caught and still uninvested Mega Ray could one shot Deoxys with Dragon Ascent and immediately end the fight as soon as all the cutscenes took place.

 

[Laguna]

Talking from experience, trying to catch Lugia in AS was a nightmare. I spent an hour trying to just find the freaking thing and another hour trying to catch it because all of its moves only have 5 PP, so eventually it would just run out of moves and then kill itself using Struggle while I'm still chucking ultra balls at it. Trust me, I was pretty frustrated by the time I finally did it. I usually have pretty good luck with catching legendaries too, so that was fun.

 

[Sheep]

I had an awful time catching the legendary birds in both R/B/Y and FR/LG. Took several attempts for most of them and in R/B/Y especially I was forced to chuck the Master Ball at one because I just couldn't take it anymore. Sure was glad I learned of the item duplication trick to save myself trouble later. xD;; Otherwise the roaming legendary dogs in G/S/C were an absolute pain like I can't even describe. My Mean Looker didn't survive very long in fights against them. :'(

 

[JJ Styles]

Also, i'm not sure if anyone have already said this but back in Gen 1, Snorlax was always frustrating to catch. Whatever Snorlax you wanted to get, it was at lvl30, a level higher than most of the npcs at this point (higher level than Erika, 1st encounter with Giovanni, and the Rockets at Lavender Tower). You still had no access to Ultra Balls, and unless you did some serious grinding, your highest level'd mons would only be at the late 20s (27- to 29 range) or through some grinding, at least around lvl30s but still with not many strong moves (excluding raticate with Hyper Fang). That being said, Snorlax has a lot of health, it has rest to shrug of the damage that you were most likely to deal with it at that point in the game, and Headbutt, which is on STAB with Snorlax and has more BP than most of your own party's moves. So basically, i still remember catching Snorlax to be pretty frustrating with it having Rest, good defenses, and Power over what a player would have at that point in the game. Of course getting that Snorlax and it being on the party is all worth the trouble, especially if one is doing a Normal Monotype run of Gen 1.

If I recall in FRLG, the in-game snorlax(s) even have leftovers to support their sustain. Of course, FRLG being a newer gen means that more pokemon would have better moves and new typings to take advantage of to resist the STAB moves that Snorlax would use. And of course, be careful not to let that Machop (or Machoke) use dat low kick on Snorlax since it might KO in one hit given how heavy Snorlax is.

 

[Evening]

Everything is tough to catch. Selecting your ball takes a long time y'know?

 

[Centipede Chan]

Holy hell was catching Kyurem a nightmare and BW. So many dusk balls on that day were lost. I guess I sorta redeemed myself when I caught Kyurem and White 2 with a timer ball in a short amount of time lol.