In Pokémon GO you can encounter the legendary Galar birds for a few weeks now. A trainer now shows a trick to catch them much easier. We at MeinMMO looked at how it should work and what the community says about the trick.
Which monsters are involved? In Pokémon GO, there has been the so-called Adventure Incense since July. This is a special incense that can be lit once a day for 15 minutes and brings you various monsters while you move.
This way you can encounter evolutions as well as rare monsters alongside the normal spawns. This includes the legendary Galar birds Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, which are really hard to catch. But that should now change, as a trainer shows on reddit how he can catch the Pokémon easier.
Galar birds are slippery Pokémon
Why are the Galar birds so hard to catch? Unlike the other spawns from the daily incense, the Galar birds are particularly hard to catch. This is primarily due to their relatively low encounter rate.
So it already takes a fair amount of luck to encounter such an example. Once you finally have it in front of you, the legendary Pokémon is definitely not guaranteed to stay. The Galar birds have an extremely high flee rate.
Most trainers report that it disappears again after the first throw, although they hit it using a golden razz berry and a great ball with a fantastic throw.
So here too, the throwing skill of the players alone is not enough to secure these monsters. But the reddit user KrashTess is sure that he has now found the ultimate trick to catch the Galar birds easier in the future.
How the trick works: In his current reddit post, the user KrashTess shows a posted video from the Twitter user JASHYZGO and writes “Trick to increase catch rate for Galar birds” (via reddit.com).
It shows the encounter with a Galar-Zapdos from the adventure incense. However, instead of trying to catch the Pokémon directly, the trainer first selects his ultra balls and throws them one by one on the ground.
He does this more than 10 times until he finally feeds a golden razz berry and throws at the Galar-Zapdos. He hits it with a fantastic throw and it stays in the ball.
Community is skeptical whether it works
In the reddit community, this tip provides plenty of discussion, as not all trainers are sure that this trick actually works. The player filming the video may just have been lucky that this particular Pokémon stayed in the ball.
However, a sort of “catch bonus” might have been activated here. This is said to exist during raids, as members of The Silph Road discovered last year. Accordingly, the chance of catching a raid boss increases if you throw more than 8 to 10 balls. However, this is said not to work in the wild (via thesilphroad.com).
For this reason, the trainers in the reddit community are rather divided in opinion regarding the trick from KrashTess, which is why you can read the following in the comments (via reddit.com):
- Elwood_of_Pherae: “I would like to leave it as it is, as it is possible that it actually works, but it still requires a lot of research. We have not yet seen any evidence that wild legendaries receive the same sympathy catch bonus as raid encounters.”
- rockysaytalk101: “So the idea is to waste 20 balls and then increase the catch rate because legendaries in raid encounters have their catch rate increased with a certain number of balls […] I don’t know if that works for these wild ones. Does anyone know if that applies to legendary encounters in GBL [GO Battle League]?”
- KyleDelta: “It seems worth a try, but are we sure that the ‘trick’ here isn’t to encounter a level 8 Galar-Zapdos?”
- CskoGO: “I’ve encountered a few level 1s and they fled on the first wiggle. I will definitely try this next time.”
- HoldAlarmed5016: “Interesting idea, but I believe the latest research shows that the ‘sympathy bonus’ only applies to raid bosses, not to wild encounters, so probably just luck. Nevertheless, probably worth a try, what do we have to lose as long as we can get enough Poké Balls?”
The Silph Road is a global community made up of trainers, data miners, and Pokémon GO enthusiasts. Together, they analyze the game and try to learn more about the processes and mechanics of Pokémon GO. For example, they compile information on various catch rates or shiny rates. They then make their results publicly available to other trainers.
Does the trick work now? Whether the trick actually works cannot be said for certain, as there are still too few experiences. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the bonus when catching also applies to legendary monsters in the wild or only in raids.
Since the legendary Galar Pokémon are relatively rare and typically flee after the first throw anyway, you can definitely try KrashTess’s tip as long as you don’t mind using your ultra balls for it.
What do you think about the trick from KrashTess? Have you been able to catch a Galar bird from the adventure incense? And will you try the tip next time as well? Feel free to share your opinion with us here on MeinMMO in the comments and exchange ideas with other trainers.
Pokémon GO has already turned 6 years old this year. Do you remember what it was like when the game was released? We will show you.
