Catch Rate Calculator
Select a Pokemon above to calculate catch probability.
Try searching for Mewtwo, Garchomp, or any Pokemon you are trying to catch.
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Pokeball Progression
Pokeball progression data is being added for X & Y
Pokeball progression is currently verified for Red & Blue and FireRed & LeafGreen. Other games will be added as we verify mart inventories and pickup locations against authoritative sources.
How to Catch Pokemon
In X & Y, every wild Pokemon has a hidden number called its catch rate, somewhere between 3 and 255. The higher that number, the more likely the Pokeball is to stay closed when you throw it. Common Pokemon like Bunnelby sit at 255. Box legendary Pokemon like Xerneas and Yveltal sit higher than they look at first glance, while late-game catches like Mewtwo at the Pokemon Village hit the floor at 3.
Three things change your odds the most: how low the wild Pokemon's HP is, what status condition you put it in, and which Pokeball you throw. Drop HP first, apply Sleep or Freeze for a 2.5x bonus (Paralysis, Burn, or Poison gives a smaller 1.5x boost if Sleep is not an option), then throw the situational ball. Generation VI is the first time the catch math carries forward unchanged from the previous generation, so all the Gen V tactics still apply directly here.
How to Increase Your Catch Chance
Multipliers compound. The standard sequence is weaken HP, apply Sleep, throw the situational ball. ORAS adds a pre-encounter wrinkle through DexNav: as your Search Level rises through chained encounters, the scouting overlay progressively reveals the wild Pokemon's first move (Search Level 2 and up), then a Hidden Ability or held item (Search Level 3 and up), and finally IV stars (Search Level 5 and up). Hidden Ability and Egg Move encounters are flagged with an exclamation mark.
1Weaken HP with False Swipe. Knock the wild Pokemon to 1 HP without knocking it out. False Swipe caps damage at exactly 1 HP when the hit would otherwise faint the target. For Ghost-types (immune to Normal moves), use Night Shade instead and watch the HP bar.
- Power
- 40
- Accuracy
- 100%
- PP
- 40
- Power
- —
- Accuracy
- 100%
- PP
- 15
2Put the target to Sleep for a 2.5x catch bonus. Sleep is the strongest status multiplier in the catch formula. Four primary sleep moves, ordered by accuracy:
- Power
- —
- Accuracy
- 100%
- PP
- 15
- Power
- —
- Accuracy
- 75%
- PP
- 15
- Power
- —
- Accuracy
- 60%
- PP
- 20
- Power
- —
- Accuracy
- 55%
- PP
- 15
3Throw the right ball. The right ball depends on the situation, not on rarity. Walk through the questions below in priority order. Stop at the first YES.
Walk through these questions in order and stop at the first YES — that is your ball. If none of the questions apply, throw an Ultra Ball.
Quick Ball5x bonus
Repeat Ball3x bonus
Net Ball3x bonus
Dive Ball3.5x bonus
Dusk Ball3.5x bonus
Timer Ball~4x bonus
Ultra Ball2x bonus
Great Ball1.5x bonus
Poke Ball1x (no bonus)Skipping any step costs you catch odds. The full sequence is weaken HP, apply Sleep, then throw the situational ball. ORAS shows Apricorn balls as cameo display items in the Poke Ball Boutique inside the Lilycove Pokemon Center, but they are not obtainable through normal gameplay; the actual return of Apricorn balls to a player's bag does not happen until Generation VII (Sun and Moon, via the Game Freak office NPC in Heahea City).
Generation VI keeps the critical capture mechanic from Gen V: when your Pokedex completion is high enough, the ball runs just one shake check instead of three, and it is much more likely to succeed. The chance scales with caught species count, not just seen. Filling out the dex pays off in future catch attempts.
X and Y add the Friend Safari, which is the easiest path to specific sleep-move users that are otherwise hard to find. The Normal-type Friend Safari can host Smeargle for permanent Spore access via Sketch, and the Grass-type safari hosts Petilil for Sleep Powder access. Mewtwo waits at the Pokemon Village in the post-game and holds the catch-rate floor of 3, the same as in every previous game it appears in.