Ugh! Get into my Pokéball, you!

[Sun]

Have you ever encountered a Pokémon that is difficult to find and catch (besides the obvious legends)?

One of the most difficult to capture Pokémon for me was the Red Gyarados from HGSS! Most of my Pokémon were not impressive on the Defense stat, as well as Dragon Rage cuts 40 HP, not to mention I have no moves that can inflict status problem! Fortunately it doesn't possess any Water-type moves, or it's gonna wreck teams like Kyogre!

 

[Murkrow]

if you ever met a Beldum in the wild (normally avaialble in DPP i think) you will know the true meaning of frustration

 

[LilyGardy]

A Metang in Black took about 20 Ultra Balls to catch on red health and asleep.

Also inexplicably a Tyrogue in the same game took 7 Ultra Balls.

A Burmy in X. Lost patience and fainted it after 10 Great Balls

 

[Embernight]

Abra have always been a bit of a pain with their Teleport. Usually, I just skip past them or try to OHKO them for experience. It wasn't until a recent play through on HG that I found out that the move Bind can prevent them from escaping. I knew there were some moves and abilities that could do that, but didn't know Bind was one of them. After that, I got to play through the rest of the game with a Kadabra in my party.
Also, catching pokemon in the safari zone can be annoying. I always struggle with that. And of course, a shiny happened to show up, which I failed to catch.

 

[mew_nani]

Well aside from Abra there's no less than two in particular that are a severe pain to catch: Raikou and Entei. They roam around, which is alright I guess. But they have one move in particular that can cause endless frustration; Roar. Should it use it, at best you'll be flung out of the battle, but in Firered and Leafgreen if either of them use Roar and you save afterward, you're toast. No legendary beast for you. There's a glitch that makes them vanish should they use Roar, so you might as well reset and try again should it use that move. Those two in particular are the ones you should be saving your Master Ball for, because it can be nigh impossible to catch them otherwise.

EDIT: I just now noticed it mentioned "besides the obvious legendaries," but those are really hard to catch, even taking their legendary status into account. I guess otherwise though it would be any Pokemon with Memento, Self Destruct, or Explosion.

 

[Sun]

if you ever met a Beldum in the wild (normally avaialble in DPP i think) you will know the true meaning of frustration

Yep, it has only one move -- Take Down. And it goes literally down if you aren't keen enough. Sadly Heal Pulse wasn't available in DPt. Ah and that Catch Rate? Good luck with it! {XD}

A Metang in Black took about 20 Ultra Balls to catch on red health and asleep.

Also inexplicably a Tyrogue in the same game took 7 Ultra Balls.

A Burmy in X. Lost patience and fainted it after 10 Great Balls

Wow that Burmy is uh special. I have a similar case with a Bidoof, though it only took me 5 Ultras to catch it. But then and again, the said Bidoof was healthy; no status infliction or HP deducted. When I finally caught it, my young sister and I decided to name it as Stubborn! {XD}

Abra have always been a bit of a pain with their Teleport. Usually, I just skip past them or try to OHKO them for experience. It wasn't until a recent play through on HG that I found out that the move Bind can prevent them from escaping. I knew there were some moves and abilities that could do that, but didn't know Bind was one of them. After that, I got to play through the rest of the game with a Kadabra in my party.
Also, catching pokemon in the safari zone can be annoying. I always struggle with that. And of course, a shiny happened to show up, which I failed to catch.

Good thing is Quick Balls have high capture rate on the very first turn, you can try them next time! ;)

I have such sad experience in the Emerald Safari Zone! I encountered this Shiny Hoot Hoot and it was so damn stubborn, I used a lot of Safari Balls but at the end it ran away. I had an exact experience with a shiny Jigglypuff in SoulSilver. :/ Talk about tough luck!

 

[LilyGardy]

Abra have always been a bit of a pain with their Teleport. Usually, I just skip past them or try to OHKO them for experience. It wasn't until a recent play through on HG that I found out that the move Bind can prevent them from escaping. I knew there were some moves and abilities that could do that, but didn't know Bind was one of them. After that, I got to play through the rest of the game with a Kadabra in my party.
Also, catching pokemon in the safari zone can be annoying. I always struggle with that. And of course, a shiny happened to show up, which I failed to catch.

I have never caught an Abra in anything less than an Ultra Ball.

I can also empathise with the 'escaped shiny' story but mine was an Electrode in the Lost Hotel which exploded after I missed with Gardevoir's hypnosis.

I had a shiny Basculin as well which took 12 Ultra Balls to catch on yellow Hp and sleeping.

@Unapologetic Sunflower

That Burmy was special particularly considering everything else in the area is catchable by just throwing a Great Ball at it.

 

[DforDragoz]

Metang in White 2. I was confident a Quick Ball would do the job, but then it lasted for 15+ Ultra Balls and a few Moomoo milks. I wasn't aware that they were that hard to catch.

 

[Hikamaru]

I had a capture once that made me think it had a Legendary's catch rate, and that was a Cryogonal in Black. They are encountered in what is clearly a cave, yet for some reason I found myself burning like 8 Dusk Balls (which have 4x effectiveness in caves) just to catch the darn thing.

 

[Frozen Lotus]

It varies. I've had this happen with very ordinary Pokemon that I'd have never thought would be hard to capture, such as Seedot or Sandshrew. It's always those kinds of things I end up throwing tons of Pokeballs at, then relatively rare things that I catch with ease. Heck, I caught Kyogre in Alpha Sapphire with only a few Dive Balls, and I caught Giratina in Platinum with like one or two Dusk Balls.

Eevee, though? At least two Ultras and six Greats.

 

[Drayton]

Mostly when trying to catch abra it always teleports, but it shouldn't be a problem with pokemon that outspeed it or using moves to stops it from escaping even ability like shadow tag or arena trap to lock'em down otherwise, just throw a quickball and it be instant.

Pokemon that appear on Great Marsh (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) and Safari Zone it's more harder and challenging it seems you just use the right action to make it stay and the chances of these safari mons flees is very random or slightly likely and it does hurt your in-game money for getting another session

 

[Lycanthropy]

The only thing that comes to my mind right now is Beldum in DPPt. They have a catch rate just as low as a legendary's and the only move it knows suicides it. Even when paralyzed and on low HP it cost me many tries to capture it, even when I could block it from suicide with a couple of ghost Pokémon. The raging sandstorm ended them...

 

[Megan]

Outside of the obvious Teleporting Abras or Safari Zone shenanigans, I don't think, I ever encountered a Pokemon that's not a legendary, that I had problems with catching. Then again, I never really bothered with a lot of those, like the Metang in BW2, because I always managed to get them in a different way, like trading.

 

[Return]

Like everyone said, it feels me very hard to catch beldum because of its very low Catch rate(even then many legendaries).It took be about 15 ultra balls to catch it(and even more i don't clearly remember).That makes me feel frustrated after catching him finally, i said why i waist my Pokeballs to catch that steely Pokemon <_<

 

[Sopheria]

Forget legendaries, forget roaming Pokemon, Chansey in the Safari Zone in RBY is the hardest Pokemon to catch in Pokemon history ><

 

[GengyGengar]

Beldum and Abra. Beldum because Take Down + Catch Rate = 100% frustration. Abra because Teleport. Literally just Teleport.

 

[PokeService]

Ugh Entei, Raikou, and Suicune in Silver. Just get in the freaking ball!! Nope, it just gets out and runs away...Great here goes another 10 minutes trying to get on the same route.

 

[Bgoldwax]

As I played through Black, I caught Volcarona on my first Ultra Ball with a Critical Capture (only 18 pokemon registered in the pokedex so it had a 0% modifier), Terrakion in 7 Ultra balls, Cobalion in 13, Virizion in 25.

But the crown jewel goes to.... Staryu. It took 37 Ultra Balls to capture it and it was in the red zone.
The pokemon that I have yet to find is Lapras in Black/White. I spent about 8 hours trying to find it and I still can't. Ugh I WANT that Lapras

 

[Cyberglass]

As far as non-legendaries go, I've always had trouble with Skarmory and Onix. Both have surprisingly low catch rates for the point in the game you first encounter them (especially Onix, which usually appears right after you pick up your first Great Ball but before you can buy them in shops). In almost every game I have used up my entire stock of Pokéballs the first time I try to catch one or the other.

 

[Somewhere_]

Red Gyarados was also very tough for me, and I didnt even catch him. I also found Togekiss to be very hard to catch in my randomized nuzlocke. No matter how low it got and how asleep it was, it would not get caught. Eventually, I was forced to just faint it.