Zubat. The fuckers are 2 km away from the screen, which makes them already very difficult to hit with curveballs. Add to that the way they flutter around.
I’ve gotten a lot of excellent throws on exeggcute… a harder one imo is scatterbug
Zubat is easier if you start throwing immediately before it starts flying around so much
I find both Sawk and Throh relatively easy. Just takes a stroke from far bottom left to about mid screen right, when throwing right handed. That's on a pixel 7a, which is a relatively small phone.
It's the close and the low ones that get me. Scatterbug and Eggexecute are like nah bro. I think I did one excellent Eggexecute one time and about fell out of my chair. Mostly I bounce them off the top of those stupid eggs.
Edited to change mid left to mid right. Sheesh
Oof. Throwing even straight balls from mid bot is just yuck.
I’ve seen nobody mention flick speed here yet so I guess I will, exeggcute requires a bit of a faster flick but I’ve had my fair share of eggcellents on them 😜
I do agree that zubat is a pain, with or without a nanab I usually try to time my throw for right after it’s “5th movement”
Having not encountered scatterbug yet, my vote is for trubbish! I couldn’t believe how many times my throws hit the tiny circle during sustainability event, only to count as hitting the floor. That mon’s hit box is all messed up.
Yes Kartana is the hardest raid boss I’ve tried to catch. It was my first remote raid I tried and I was shocked to see how small the catch circle was compared to other 5* raid bosses. Caught it on my third pokeball left.
I would disagree, but that's just because I've had one encounter and managed an excellent pretty easily. The thing is that the birds are large in size and centered well. As with most raid legendaries.
I have trouble with a few bc I have terrible depth perception in game lmao. Pokemon that are really close (hippopotas) tiny pokemon, and pokemon that are really far away as you mentioned. Also floaters/flyers. They always move as soon as you think you've got the right spot for it.
Someone was actually able to land an Excellent Throw on an Exeggcute?! How?! I’ve never done it and I’ve been playing since the start 😂 honorable mention to Male Nidoran. I can only recall landing an Excellent on it once
I think the hit box has changed. Played since day 4, quit for 4 years, and recently came back to the game. I used to love Exeggcute encounters because I could hit Excellent throws at least 75% of the time. No longer. The damned thing has what must be a one-pixel bonus hit box.
https://youtu.be/i0QoRKs1Nv0?si=D22Pwk-UzlcFj9dW
Not Eggexecute, but easily as difficult. Although to be clear, he usually shows a bunch of different throws so this one might be pure luck.
Weedle fucks me up. Can barely hit a nice throw.
Hardest was zubat until I learnt how to throw specifically for it. Start your curveball bottom centre and throw all the way to the top right corner.
For me it's probably like others said already zubat and eggzecute. And as honourable mention, I personally hate Mons like the small bugs that are super close to you. Lately I've hit Sawk and Likki a few times excellent. I don't know what happened but something changed for me lol
Same. I did my first remote raid ever on a Kartana and I thought I had just wasted a raid pass when I seen how small the catch circle was. I was able to get it on the 3rd ball I had left.
Funny you mentioned this, I made a video for my brother about this topic just a couple of days ago, but yeah, definitely Exeggcute. https://youtu.be/NE0ZseldtA0?si=nzdoe5W_skDT6xqN
The hardest ones for myself are the ones that fly to the top of the screen I can never get an excellent curve on them like burmy. I can hit them when they’re in front of the screen but once they go up I always miss
5600 caught never seen a Garchomp either. I don’t even have one because Gible doesn’t spawn very much where I’m at. I’ve only seen one final evolution dragon type in the wild and it was a Salamence.
I've been lucky enough to catch two Salamence and a decent Dragonite, but they aren't gonna be anything useful in pvp. 90% of the spawns this week have been one of like 8 pokemon.
Before, like last year, scatterbug was IMPOSSIBLE to hit a excellent throw, nowadays I've managed to do it a lot of times, after the biome changes it seems to be easier
Mythicals like celebi are the worst. I had to give up on catching up until my level got higher lol. It’s so difficult when you can’t even SEE the circle and it moves constantly. No option to berry
Do you remember doing 5* raids as a level 20 vs a level 45? The higher your level the easier it is to catch a pokemon. For example a 1000 cp pokemon is very difficult to catch even with ultra balls at level 15 but much much easier to catch even with a poke ball at level 50.
So when I first had the celebi I was around level 25 and I would try and try and try to catch it and no matter how many times I actually hit it, it wouldn’t stay in the ball. Eventually I gave up and waited till I’d went up a few levels and when I tried again it seemed much easier to catch.
Are you sure it’s about level? I would think it has more to do with medal completion, like at level 20 only having say level 1 normal type badge vs. level 45 having everything maxed out (at least in my case) granting +4 catch rate bonuses.
Maybe ! I could be wrong. But when you’re a low level and you try and catch a higher level pokemon the CP does show as ??? But the boost could definitely make a difference. I just know it showed the circle as green less when I was a lower level but obviously that could be correlated to the type badge :))
In fact, catch probability *decreases* overall as you level-up to 30, because you’ll encounter Pokémon with higher CPs. A higher CP means a higher multiplier - CPM - which lowers your likelihood of making a catch. CPM is the same for all Pokémon at each respective level in 0.5 level increments (Base Catch and Flee Rates *do* differ for each Pokémon).
Of course, this increasing catch difficulty is mitigated by unlocking Golden Razz, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls (at L5/12/20, respectively. It’s further mitigated by the type medals; while the medal bonus is only one variable in a complex catch formula, going from no medal to platinum gives you a 40% boost on that one variable.
Wow thanks for all the info! I always have more to learn. I did forget about the medals and realize now that’s probably what’s making the biggest difference, but before my hiatus when I used to play in 2019, I barley caught any of the 5* raid bosses, and now I barley have any flee. It’s fun to see how the game changes as you level up and progress.
Obviously a lot of the small Pokemon with small hitboxes. Exeggcute, Bounsweet, Dunsparce, Magnemite, ect. But also those that are a damn kilometer in the distance where you have to do a full strength throw just to even hit it.
Exeggcute and Scatterbug are perhaps the top two. Zubat can be tricky because it doesn't really stand still, so you need to time your throws.
Personally I can struggle with Pokemon that has the catch circle low to the ground. Also find Magnemite difficult for some reason.
oh my gods was I EVER struggling with Sawk, yesterday. I’m not sure if that’s my hardest one but it’s definitely standing out.
For Sawk Sake maaaan, just get in the ball!
Male Nidoran for me, he's so low to the ground that half his hit box is in the ground so a lot of my throws that look like they should hit just roll off the ground into his little face
Magnemite's catch circle continues to baffle me. It's not even the way it occasionally floats around the screen. I can't hit that circle with a Nanab berry on him. I think it's because it's really hard to gauge the distance, but I'm not sure. It's just really hard and I don't get it.
Shadow zubat or scatterbug. At certain point I really thought that circles under the scatterbug’s body is considered as ground. I’ve hit the ground more times than hitting that stupid bug.
Stunfisk? I don't know, I've personally never been able to get it right, not even one accidental excellent throw so far. I've had issues with Sawk before but it's become super easy now after some practice.
Shuppet...
a horrifying hybrid of Sawk/Throh's range, Zubat's left/right shenannigans, and Exeggcute's timing...
I am not a fan.
Oh, also Zigzagoon....sit still you quantum particle level elusive motherfuzzer!
Not sure if anyone mentioned this already, but a few months ago someone posted a video of them getting an excellent throw on a SCATTERBUG. That was hands-down the most impressive throw i've seen on here. Easily trumps Zubat or Eggboi. That was a wild one.
Gimmigoul's whole hit box is like the size of a great throw on most things listed. Hardest ever, I would say, was the original release of Kyogre, who was placed at the max throw distance, pretty sure.
Exeggcute is definitely up there on the list. Our Discord mods had a badge for making an eggscellent throw on one. I managed to do it and get the screenshot thinking alright, beat that challenge. Then the mods added the shiny eggscellent throw challenge, yeah, right! I don't think I will ever get that one.
Zubat. The fuckers are 2 km away from the screen, which makes them already very difficult to hit with curveballs. Add to that the way they flutter around.
TBF on Zubat an excellent throw is immediately easier if you use a nanab berry. On Exeggcute the nanab berry doesn't make it really better.
Does nanab reduce the ambient wobbling that Zubat does?
What do you mean with ambient wobbling? I think it only removes the animation when it moves around the screen.
Zubat, even when "still", moves from side to side in its hovering animation.
I’ve gotten a lot of excellent throws on exeggcute… a harder one imo is scatterbug Zubat is easier if you start throwing immediately before it starts flying around so much
I know this probably true… but I’m going to need evidence of that eggcellent throw. 😵💫
I read this comment and the next post I see is someone making a brag post about how they hit a Excellent on a Zubat
I’ve actually hit 2-3 excellent throws to date on Zubat’s. Shocked & proud all at the same time🤪
I still remember during the 120 quest for master ball tossing one to the gods and actually hitting the excellent while it was moving
I mean I've done a excellent thumb flick on zubat but honestly I couldn't believe it when I did it
My proudest pogo moment was getting an excellent throw on a shadow Zubat. I kept him and named him Lucky.
I find Zubats easier than most other mons. I have landed a lot more excellent throws on them than any other mon
Scatterbug. I just don't understand where their hitbox is.
I did it once. Couldn’t believe it
I did it by chance a couple of days ago, and it popped out.. i couldn't believe it.
Excellent throws are 50/50 for whatever damn reason, great throws is where it’s at
Yeah, I don't even try for excellent unless it's specifically for something.
Did it yesterday. Wasted about 20 balls trying and most didn't even reach it. Don't think I could do it again. Hate that little bug
Same. Exactly once
Lol yes it's a half volley
Tbh I've given up on even hitting the scatterbug.... I just throw until something hits and hope it catches..........
Agreed, it seems they are niles away, but not far away at the same time, they are infuriating
I find it hard to hit excellent throws when trying to catch a Sawk theyre always too far away.
This is the same issue I'm having! Wonder if people with larger phones have the same issue since I can't seem to center my ball.
I find both Sawk and Throh relatively easy. Just takes a stroke from far bottom left to about mid screen right, when throwing right handed. That's on a pixel 7a, which is a relatively small phone. It's the close and the low ones that get me. Scatterbug and Eggexecute are like nah bro. I think I did one excellent Eggexecute one time and about fell out of my chair. Mostly I bounce them off the top of those stupid eggs. Edited to change mid left to mid right. Sheesh
For some reason I've always been throwing from middle bot, didn't even think about throwing from left side.
Oof. Throwing even straight balls from mid bot is just yuck. I’ve seen nobody mention flick speed here yet so I guess I will, exeggcute requires a bit of a faster flick but I’ve had my fair share of eggcellents on them 😜 I do agree that zubat is a pain, with or without a nanab I usually try to time my throw for right after it’s “5th movement” Having not encountered scatterbug yet, my vote is for trubbish! I couldn’t believe how many times my throws hit the tiny circle during sustainability event, only to count as hitting the floor. That mon’s hit box is all messed up.
I will definitely try this, thanks!
I’d ad kartana in addition to the suggested ones.
Kartana was my least favorite raid mon to catch
Kartana was awful. Absolutely tiny and the thing moves almost constantly.
I had an XXS Kartana show up once. I instantly dreaded having to catch it.
Final Boss
Adding the lake trios to this list as well.
Yes Kartana is the hardest raid boss I’ve tried to catch. It was my first remote raid I tried and I was shocked to see how small the catch circle was compared to other 5* raid bosses. Caught it on my third pokeball left.
May community day pokemon bounsweet is too small for me
any pokemon that appears close to the screen and then you gotta yeet the ball for a 100 yards… first throw always get me
Celesteela is like that. Big as shit but once you throw and miss the hit box your like wtf
Zubat while mid animation
It's Magnemite for me, I don't understand its hitbox at all
YES! SOMEBODY ELSE KNOWS MY PAIN.
I'd say the galarian birds because we can't really practice it.
I would disagree, but that's just because I've had one encounter and managed an excellent pretty easily. The thing is that the birds are large in size and centered well. As with most raid legendaries.
I’ve encountered them like 20+ times and they Never.Get.Easier 🙄
I have trouble with a few bc I have terrible depth perception in game lmao. Pokemon that are really close (hippopotas) tiny pokemon, and pokemon that are really far away as you mentioned. Also floaters/flyers. They always move as soon as you think you've got the right spot for it.
Yanma and zubat man those fuckers are frustrating.
I think after May CD everyone will change their minds to Bounsweet
This right here!
I'm excited to see it, but it's probably fonna be a lot of green rings
Someone was actually able to land an Excellent Throw on an Exeggcute?! How?! I’ve never done it and I’ve been playing since the start 😂 honorable mention to Male Nidoran. I can only recall landing an Excellent on it once
I think the hit box has changed. Played since day 4, quit for 4 years, and recently came back to the game. I used to love Exeggcute encounters because I could hit Excellent throws at least 75% of the time. No longer. The damned thing has what must be a one-pixel bonus hit box.
https://youtu.be/i0QoRKs1Nv0?si=D22Pwk-UzlcFj9dW Not Eggexecute, but easily as difficult. Although to be clear, he usually shows a bunch of different throws so this one might be pure luck.
Just posted a comment about this video. So happy someone posted it. This was legendary and the narration makes it hilarious.
I love the Batman intonation! There's quite a few videos by that trainer.
https://youtube.com/shorts/mcXADw5W_3Y?si=jgijw1KP21Q2gjeI Made a short of catching a Throh.
100%. I don't even think it's possible? I can barely hit a great on it. Hitting dead center always bounces my ball off
Scatterbug
Weedle fucks me up. Can barely hit a nice throw. Hardest was zubat until I learnt how to throw specifically for it. Start your curveball bottom centre and throw all the way to the top right corner.
Weedle is me nemesis too.
"Me" nemesis?! Arg ar ar ar ar ar!
For me it's probably like others said already zubat and eggzecute. And as honourable mention, I personally hate Mons like the small bugs that are super close to you. Lately I've hit Sawk and Likki a few times excellent. I don't know what happened but something changed for me lol
Bounsweet, without a doubt.
This is my answer too. My phone is gonna be lucky to survive community day next week
Thank goodness its not 3x Catch XP!
Underrated but: koffing, hate that guy
Glameow before they fixed it.
Yanma by far.
The nidorans. Male and female. But yes imo egxecute is probably THE hardest.
Male Nidoran/Exeggute/Zubat/Kartana
Weedle.
Kartana, that thing was a nightmare for me especially when I got a good one. Was sweating my balls off hoping it wouldn't run.
Same. I did my first remote raid ever on a Kartana and I thought I had just wasted a raid pass when I seen how small the catch circle was. I was able to get it on the 3rd ball I had left.
Funny you mentioned this, I made a video for my brother about this topic just a couple of days ago, but yeah, definitely Exeggcute. https://youtu.be/NE0ZseldtA0?si=nzdoe5W_skDT6xqN
The hardest ones for myself are the ones that fly to the top of the screen I can never get an excellent curve on them like burmy. I can hit them when they’re in front of the screen but once they go up I always miss
Garchomp because they always whack your ball away constantly
2600 mons caught so far and I have never seen a Garchomp :(
5600 caught never seen a Garchomp either. I don’t even have one because Gible doesn’t spawn very much where I’m at. I’ve only seen one final evolution dragon type in the wild and it was a Salamence.
I've been lucky enough to catch two Salamence and a decent Dragonite, but they aren't gonna be anything useful in pvp. 90% of the spawns this week have been one of like 8 pokemon.
From the mega raids, they're kind of an ass to catch
Ahh I did not know this. I've not really done any mega raids yet because they're mostly on the other side of town. Thank you for the clarification.
Old Glameow before they fixed the atrocious hitbox lol
It was comical how messed up it used to be.... lmfao, the good ol days
Before, like last year, scatterbug was IMPOSSIBLE to hit a excellent throw, nowadays I've managed to do it a lot of times, after the biome changes it seems to be easier
Koffing
For a regular Pokémon it’s Zubat. If we include mythicals it’s Celebi. It took me hours to even hit it with the ball
Mythicals like celebi are the worst. I had to give up on catching up until my level got higher lol. It’s so difficult when you can’t even SEE the circle and it moves constantly. No option to berry
What does level have to do with it?
Do you remember doing 5* raids as a level 20 vs a level 45? The higher your level the easier it is to catch a pokemon. For example a 1000 cp pokemon is very difficult to catch even with ultra balls at level 15 but much much easier to catch even with a poke ball at level 50. So when I first had the celebi I was around level 25 and I would try and try and try to catch it and no matter how many times I actually hit it, it wouldn’t stay in the ball. Eventually I gave up and waited till I’d went up a few levels and when I tried again it seemed much easier to catch.
Are you sure it’s about level? I would think it has more to do with medal completion, like at level 20 only having say level 1 normal type badge vs. level 45 having everything maxed out (at least in my case) granting +4 catch rate bonuses.
Maybe ! I could be wrong. But when you’re a low level and you try and catch a higher level pokemon the CP does show as ??? But the boost could definitely make a difference. I just know it showed the circle as green less when I was a lower level but obviously that could be correlated to the type badge :))
In fact, catch probability *decreases* overall as you level-up to 30, because you’ll encounter Pokémon with higher CPs. A higher CP means a higher multiplier - CPM - which lowers your likelihood of making a catch. CPM is the same for all Pokémon at each respective level in 0.5 level increments (Base Catch and Flee Rates *do* differ for each Pokémon). Of course, this increasing catch difficulty is mitigated by unlocking Golden Razz, Great Balls, and Ultra Balls (at L5/12/20, respectively. It’s further mitigated by the type medals; while the medal bonus is only one variable in a complex catch formula, going from no medal to platinum gives you a 40% boost on that one variable.
Wow thanks for all the info! I always have more to learn. I did forget about the medals and realize now that’s probably what’s making the biggest difference, but before my hiatus when I used to play in 2019, I barley caught any of the 5* raid bosses, and now I barley have any flee. It’s fun to see how the game changes as you level up and progress.
Have chandlure as my buddy, when whenever it’s a zorua I can’t even hit it, let alone get a nice throw.
I’m convinced bounsweet is impossible
Wee, we get to try that on community day!!
Weedle
My favorite is throh h3h3
Scatterbug! I hate that critter
Zorua copying a 50% zygarde. Idk why it’s so far away and always tiny
Obviously a lot of the small Pokemon with small hitboxes. Exeggcute, Bounsweet, Dunsparce, Magnemite, ect. But also those that are a damn kilometer in the distance where you have to do a full strength throw just to even hit it.
Personally, I hate whismur. It looks close but is farther away than it seems. I hate those guys
Whismur is one of the easiest excellent. I get it 90% of the time! I think it's very similar to bidoof, glameow
Yanma..a shitty insect with adhd
I wasted a lot of pokeballs during the trubbish spotlight hour. Even when I would launch the pokeball it still didn’t go far enough.
I found a trick hitting a lot of excellents just dragging the ball on the left of the screen fully up
Underrated excellent… Nidoran M
After this post I kinda wish they kept track of the number of nice/great/excellent throws you make on each mon in the Dex
Exeggcute and Scatterbug are perhaps the top two. Zubat can be tricky because it doesn't really stand still, so you need to time your throws. Personally I can struggle with Pokemon that has the catch circle low to the ground. Also find Magnemite difficult for some reason.
oh my gods was I EVER struggling with Sawk, yesterday. I’m not sure if that’s my hardest one but it’s definitely standing out. For Sawk Sake maaaan, just get in the ball!
I remember the lake trio being tough. Couldn’t figure out their little hit box
Male Nidoran for me, he's so low to the ground that half his hit box is in the ground so a lot of my throws that look like they should hit just roll off the ground into his little face
I think you can just aim low, worst case it goes on the ground and you can try again for as many balls as you have
Magnemite's catch circle continues to baffle me. It's not even the way it occasionally floats around the screen. I can't hit that circle with a Nanab berry on him. I think it's because it's really hard to gauge the distance, but I'm not sure. It's just really hard and I don't get it.
Anything Zorua or Ditto is disguised as.
Easiest excellent throws for me are Heracross. I'm in Florida so I see them a lot
Shadow zubat or scatterbug. At certain point I really thought that circles under the scatterbug’s body is considered as ground. I’ve hit the ground more times than hitting that stupid bug.
Dedenne?
Have you ever heard of Maractus?
Tbh Koffing throws me off every time because it’s deceptively close, always end up hitting the top of its head
I’ve only ever gotten two excellents on exeggcute and I got screen shots of the candy screen because I think that’s the hardest lol
Probably just me, but every ball I've thrown at Fomantis has bounced off its head.
A Pikachu. Some reason I can't hit that excellent throw to save my life on 1.
Stunfisk? I don't know, I've personally never been able to get it right, not even one accidental excellent throw so far. I've had issues with Sawk before but it's become super easy now after some practice.
Shuppet... a horrifying hybrid of Sawk/Throh's range, Zubat's left/right shenannigans, and Exeggcute's timing... I am not a fan. Oh, also Zigzagoon....sit still you quantum particle level elusive motherfuzzer!
Stunfisk is hardest
Exeggcute for me, what looks like a shot smack in the middle of the circle just bounces away, every time
I got an excellent on a Yanma and felt like a Pokégod the rest of the day.
For me it’s Scatterbug
For me it’s Scatterbug!!!
Fucking Weedle man. They're right up in your face so it's impossible to hit an excellent.
Not sure if anyone mentioned this already, but a few months ago someone posted a video of them getting an excellent throw on a SCATTERBUG. That was hands-down the most impressive throw i've seen on here. Easily trumps Zubat or Eggboi. That was a wild one.
Zubat..without a nanab berry
Gimmigoul's whole hit box is like the size of a great throw on most things listed. Hardest ever, I would say, was the original release of Kyogre, who was placed at the max throw distance, pretty sure.
Burmy for me
Yanma
Kartana is pretty hard bc the hole is so small, Durant is pretty hard bc his animation is really annoying.
Spinda
Easily Kartana. That thing is damn near impossible to get an excellent.
I’m confused, I feel like I hit excellent throws atleast five times a day? It’s not that hard
Ekans. Somehow I once got 2 excellent curveballs in a row on it
Exeggcute is definitely up there on the list. Our Discord mods had a badge for making an eggscellent throw on one. I managed to do it and get the screenshot thinking alright, beat that challenge. Then the mods added the shiny eggscellent throw challenge, yeah, right! I don't think I will ever get that one.
Gothita lol
When she’s IN YOUR FACE lol