Of the Safari Zone (Or, curse you Chansey!): A strategy guide

[Cubes]

TL;DR - For rare pokemon in the Safari Zone, the best strategy is to use 1 Bait and then throw a lot of balls. If the Pokemon stops eating and is watching carefully, throw 1 more bait then keep throwing balls. If you have 1-3 balls left, you should just throw balls without bait.

Best place to catch:

Chansey- Surf across water in the entrance, go to north area.

Scyther/Pinsir- Entrance

Kangaskhan- Go right from entrance

Tauros- Surf across water in the entrance, go to west area.

Dratini/Dragonair (The catch rate is the same)- Super Rod at any body of water

Using Repels - Using a level 26 pokemon with repels will not let you encounter Chansey per se, but it will let you avoid a bunch of pokemon in-between. It's a good time saver, if you don't want to spend the time running away from pokemon, but you won't catch Chansey any faster step-wise. (Credits to heated, reazh, and darkside)

Edit: added what to do in case Pokemon stops eating; added best places to catch pokemon; added what to do in case of 1-3 balls left; added repels.

Ok, so I was going through safari zone trying to catch rare Pokemon, wondering "What's the best strategy?". Googling gave me no answers, so I dug a little deeper. All formulas can be sourced to Bulbapedia.

A little background: every pokemon has it's own catch rate, which determines how easy or hard it is to catch. Legendaries are hard, while Pidgey is a breeze. For every pokemon, you determine a modified catch rate (using catch rate, health, status, etc), and with this you can determine the probability of catching said pokemon. The key to remember- the higher the catch rate, the higher the probability of catching the pokemon.

Normally, if the Safari Zone was just a regular wild zone, the following would apply: all pokemon are at full health, with no status conditions.For a pokemon at full health, no status, the "modified catch rate" is 1/3(catch rate).

Let's take for example, Chansey, of course. Chansey has a catch rate of 30. Normally, the modified catch rate is 1/3(30)x1.5 = 15. (Why x1.5? This factors in the safari ball properly, which is x1.5 the Pokeball.)

But, the safari zone is tricky, and adds in more factors! The catch rate is multiplied by 100/1275, and then rounded down, to get a "safari-catch factor". Here is where the safari zone screws you! Doing the math for Chansey,the rounding down gives you a safari-catch factor of just 2. Normally, when you throw the ball, it multiplies back by 1275/100, then rounds down, giving you a catch rate of just 25. Fuck that noise! Screw you safari zone.

Plugging in this new catch rate into our formula, we get 1/3(25)x1.5 = 12.5. But we have to round down (again), so it's actually 12.

Now we have a safari-modified catch rate for Chansey, 12. Using Bulbapedia's formula, we have a probability of approximately 4.7% of catching Chansey per ball thrown.

"But Cubes," you ask, "what about bait and rocks? How do those affect things?"

Very interestingly, in fact. What happens is that rocks double the safari-zone factor and bait halves it. Taking Chansey as an example for all the rare pokemon, with bait, her safari-catch factor is a measly 1, and we get a catch rate of just 12, and a modified catch rate of just 6. Your odds of catching Chansey are 2.4% per ball thrown.

As for rocks, a sneaky cool thing happens for Chansey. The safari-catch factor doubles, becoming 4, and then when you multiply by 1275/100, we get a catch rate of 51, and a modified catch rate of 25.

Did you see what happened? It's slightly more than double the regular modified catch rate, and this affects things. The odds of catching Chansey becomes 9.8% per ball thrown with the rock effect.

Now you must be thinking, rocks all the way! But, we've forgotten about escapes, and this is where the rock fails us. (Now unfortunately, I couldn't find escape rates for the pokemon, but it shouldn't affect the outcome.) When angry, a pokemon is twice as likely to escape. But when busy eating, the pokemon is 1/4 less likely to escape, a big difference.

So, you see that you get 4 bait balls every time you throw 1 rock ball, and when you add up the percentages, you get 9.8% rock vs. 9.6% bait, and . But we also have to take into account the first turn. The pokemon is angry/eating after the first turn, and so you are ~7-8 times as likely to be able to throw your first bait ball before even throwing your first rock ball, and this tilts the favor in the bait's favor.

How the escape factor works is that the escape rate(which is an integer) is multiplied by 5, and then affected by rock/bait to get a final rate. Then a random number between 0-99 is generated. If this number is lower than the final rate, the pokemon escape. For a rare pokemon, the rate is either 8 or 9 (I'm not sure), but let's say 9. Then the normal final rate is 45, and there's a 55% chance your pokemon will stay per turn. While angry, the rate becomes 90, and you only have a 10% chance of the Pokemon staying. While eating, the rate becomes 11 (rounded down), and you have an 89% chance of the pokemon staying per turn.

Factoring this in, you get-

an 11% chance to be able to throw rock and 1 ball consecutively- 1.15% chance of capture;

a 55% chance to be able to throw 2 regular balls consecutively- 7.29% chance of capture;

a 50% chance to be able to throw bait and 3 balls, followed by a bait and 2 more balls consecutively- 8.26% chance of capture.

So as you can see, rock is a TERRIBLE strategy, and bait better than just throwing balls. I can explain the math I did behind this if anyone wants me to.

How many baits should you use? Just 1. When using multiple baits, the effect on the safari-capture factor stacks, but the escape factor does not. In short, each additional bait halves your catch chance while doing nothing to the escape chance.

Another factor in bait's favor- the Safari Zone restrictions. You only get 30 balls and 500 steps. But Chansey (and other rare Pokemon) are so rare that your steps will run out before your balls do. So a strategy that maximizes the amount of balls thrown per catch attempt is the most efficient use of your hard-earned 500 Pokedollars. This doesn't apply when catching dratini/dragonair though, since you can stay still the whole time.

I'm willing to explain anything. If a formula/fact/number comes out of nowhere, it is most likely pulled from Bulbapedia, either from http://bulbapedia.bu...wiki/Catch_rate or from http://bulbapedia.bu...nto_Safari_Zone.

[BASEDWcOwl]

man that's a lot of words

[Giygas]

man that's a lot of words

Then read the TL;DR

Thank you ^_^ I'm going to be going Chansey hunting soon and knowing that bait first is better than ball first will certainly help me in the long run :D

[Elite]

Interesting. Thanks for the in-depth analysis.

[Mohka]

woah ! that is a lot of calculations you saved me!

this is a great help im gonna try the bait method from now on and compare the results from my previous encounters.. :D

[AstroSpud]

Hate reading long math equations.

[zyzz]

Sure that bait makes flee 1/4 as likely? Keep in mind that baiting is also a turn where you risk escape and you have to bait every few other turns.

[Elite]

Sure that bait makes flee 1/4 as likely? Keep in mind that baiting is also a turn where you risk escape and you have to bait every few other turns.

Apparently throwing multiple bait is useless.

When using multiple baits, the effect on the safari-capture factor stacks, but the escape factor does not. In short, each additional bait halves your catch chance while doing nothing to the escape chance.

[Luftwaffle]

Hey, maybe I won't be shit at the Safari Zone now! \o/

[Giygas]

Apparently throwing multiple bait is useless.

The single most important piece of information about the safari zone I could have ever been given.

[Elite]

The single most important piece of information about the safari zone I could have ever been given.

Well, this disproves the popular tactic of Bait>Ball>Ball>Ball>Bait>Ball>Ball>Ball.

[AstroSpud]

Well, this disproves the popular tactic of Bait>Ball>Ball>Ball>Bait>Ball>Ball>Ball.

That was pretty much my tactic until now with the rarer ones. The others take 0-1 rocks and then you can catch them.

[Heavenol]

I saw a shiny exeggcute yesterday. I thought it would be an easy catch so I didn't bother using the bait. It fled. Sadface.

[zyzz]

Apparently throwing multiple bait is useless.

Really?

But if you bait it says 'the pokemon is eating' for several turns, then 'the pokemon is watching carefully'. Is this misleading in the sense that the flee chance and the catch chance is not reset?

[Aidden]

This is awesome man, thanks soo much for this. Next time im online im definitely gonna give this a try!

[killzozgaming]

Thanks man.

[Cubes]

Really?

But if you bait it says 'the pokemon is eating' for several turns, then 'the pokemon is watching carefully'. Is this misleading in the sense that the flee chance and the catch chance is not reset?

Edit: Just did the math, and I can confirm that when the pokemon stops eating, you should throw another bait. Thanks for the feedback, gonna edit the main post.

Once the pokemon is finished eating, the catch and flee chance rates reset. In that case, you could throw another bait, then more balls, and that should be most efficient. I'd have to check the math, but I think that would be the case. The 2 things to remember are that bait lasts from 2-6 turns, and that after a set amount of turns, the pokemon is guaranteed to flee. Ideally, you'd want every ball but the last ball to be bait. The percentages are so small out here though, it won't make much of a difference in your overall catch probabilities and your catch rates.

Math stuff:

38.8% chance of bait>b-ball>b-ball>ball gives you a 9.1% chance of capture.

39.4% chance of bait>b-ball>b-ball>bait>b-ball>b-ball>b-ball>b-ball>b-ball gives you an 10.1% chance of capture.

[Giygas]

Ah, so that sounds more like how I've been trying for a chansey. Since I had heard that bait lowered the capture rate I was worried that throwing more than one bait would just further lower the capture rate. All of these little technical things are not only going to make me feel more prepared, but also more encouraged that I'm not just making it harder for myself to catch these pokemon :D

[ravagez]

Wow caught two chansey in the first 20 mins :o

[bl0nde]

Some people are just lazy. I skimmed it in like 2 minutes.

Basically with all factors considered this person thinks that bait then throwing balls is best strategy.

You will go through twice as many balls is the only down side. You will spend more money at safari zone.. but you will have a slightly higher catch rate.

Note: catch rate is always really low with the hard ones. Safari balls are poop.

Edit: thanks for taking the time to researchin and type out/share your thoughts cube. Much appreciated.

-Jenna

[Giygas]

The response I have to it costing more money, is that 500 pokedollars is incredibly cheap. A single trainer battle is usually much more than that.

Even a level 50 persian using payday while holding an amulet coin gives 500 pokedollars. Heck, even a level 25 it only takes two uses to earn that much.

[bl0nde]

true. 1x regular pokeball cost 300. So 30 for 500 is good.

[Cubes]

I was merely posting that for efficiency's sake. I know 500 doesn't mean much in the long run, but at least for me, I like to know I'm getting the most bang for my buck. What I've found is that you rarely if ever run out of balls first, so you're paying the same amount at the same rate, just using more balls per attempt.

[Topcat9o]

I get more balls on a chansey but I still can't catch one :( I get 5-7 then it runs

[Relentless]

this information is incredibly false.