finished How to start hunting any pokemon: the Newbie Guide!

[Bhimoso]

Welcome, everyone! This is a basic quick guide on how to exactly start your pokemon hunting adventures. Since PRO differs a lot from the original games (no breeding, syncs, false swipes, etc), we have to plan out stuff beforehand. We have to keep in mind that most mechanics are kept as they originally were, including repel tricking (to some extent, as it is fully and properly implemented in PRO, unlike in the original handhelds), catch rates, and ball capturing percentage chances. However, we have to keep in mind that no original game contained more than 4 regions, extra areas, and no original game is nearly as big as PRO is (it’s like three or four entire original games combined, atleast).

 

So, how do we start hunting any pokemon? Where do we begin? Well, there’s a lot of questions to start this. What do I have to bring with me? A pokemon with Surf? A Mount? A Bike? What fishing rods do I need? Do I need any pokeballs? What pokemon should I use to capture them? What tools do I need? Do I bring repels? What about escape ropes? Do I need membership active?

There’s a lot of questions to tackle when you start hunting any pokemon, so we will go one by one!

 

First of all, we have to choose the pokemon we want to hunt. There’s a lot to know first, but for example, let’s keep it simple: we’ll try to hunt for Sentret, since he is a pokemon which is often searched as we want him for bosses to work as a Baton Passer. He has access to really cool setting up moves we want to use for story. We know he’s a Normal type, he’s not very strong (so we don’t have to necessarily bring super high leveled pokemon to fight him), and we can check out his catchrate in Bulbapedia.

 

We have to also guess or discover where he appears (not really, because we can just use the Pokedex or the Official Discord Server and investigate how we can get there, or if it is even accessible to you (catching requirements, boss defeating, region completion, membership required, etc). 

 

We can open our Pokedex and check the spawns of the specific pokemon we want to hunt. However, this has many issues: we cannot check it if we don’t have the Seen or Caught data of the pokemon, it does not display the rarity of the pokemon, if we can use repel to hunt it, and sometimes it is very confusing to look at the symbols. Aside from that, it also does not show if they spawn from dig spots or headbutt trees, which is an incredible downside. It also does not display at what level range it appears.

 

 

You can join the Official Discord Server here: https://discord.gg/98pMNxq

 

You can use the Reborn Bot to search for the spawn of a pokemon. There are multiple commands you can use such as ^s pokemonname (example: ^s sneasel) that will give you the list of spawns where a specific pokemon spawns. This can also be used to check the full spawnlist of any map in the game, such as ^s mapname (example: ^s Viridian Forest).

 

The Discord Bot provides us with incredible information we can use in our hunt. We can know all areas where it spawns, the time frames where it spawns, the level, if it requires membership or not, the method (surfing, using a fishing rod, excavations, using dig, headbutting trees, just walking through grass, etc), if it can be repelled and at what levels, what other pokemon are in the same area… It just gives us literally everything we need. Tiers range from 1 to 9. The closest it gets to 9, it means that it’s harder to find. The closest to 1, the easier to find.

 

 

We will start by studying catch rates. We’ll go from the official information and we’ll work on them:

 

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate

 

The level and rarity of the pokemon, contrary to popular belief, DON’T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE ON THE CATCHING CHANCE. Catching a level 99 Sentret is as easy to catch and has the same probabilities as a level 3 Sentret. The only difference is that the level 99 Sentret might destroy your team because it’s so overleveled. Catch rates in pokemon go from 1 to 255. The closer it gets to 255, the easier it is to catch. The closer it gets to 1, the harder it is to catch. Sentret has a 255 catch rate, which means it’s extremely easy to catch. Thus, we don’t have to worry!

 

Catch rates range really weirdly. Some pokemon such as Sentret are extremely easy to capture and we will make our lives easier if we lower his hp to the minimum and paralyse or make them sleep. However, this does not happen with pokemon such as Beldum, who know self-damaging moves and might accidentally faint themselves, and have catch rates than some legendaries (yes, that’s right, some normal pokemon are extremely hard to catch, even more than some legendaries. You’d rather lose a legendary than a Beldum sometimes).

 

You can check the default catch rate of each pokemon by searching them up in Bulbapedia. For example, Sentret’s default catch rate is 43.9% (255). Catch rates increase when the pokemon has their HP lowered to below half (34 to 49%) or really low (1 to 33%). Below half is represented as orange in the HP bar, while really low is represented as red. Status conditions also affect the catch rate of a pokemon: if we poison, burn, or paralyse them, the chance of capturing the pokemon will increase. However, sleeping or freezing the opponent increases the catch rate drastically more than the aforementioned methods.

 

 

The pokeball you use when you try to capture a pokemon also matters sometimes: Poke Balls have a x1 multiplier on the chance that you catch a pokemon. Great Balls have a x1.5 multiplier and Ultra Balls have a x2 multiplier. However, this does not mean that they’re cost effective: Six Pokeballs equate to one Ultra Ball.

 

However, one Ultraball is just twice as good as a Pokeball, and not six times as good. You can see the issue here: most of the time, it’s a complete waste to use Ultraballs on pokemon whose catch rate is already high enough, as we can simply lower their HP to minimum levels and inflict a status condition onto them. Since the catch rate of certain pokemon will go over 100% when they have low HP and have a Status condition on them, it is a waste to use a Ball that boosts the normal chance of capturing a pokemon, because a 110% would make no difference 

 

There is a full list of pokeballs and you can study how their chance works here:

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate#Pok.C3.A9_Ball_effectiveness_rates

 

 

For this guide, we will try to set different examples: We can hunt a Sentret (easy), a Pineco (medium) and a Beldum (hard). Sentret is a commonly used baton passer who is excellent at boosting its stats to later on Baton Pass them onto another pokemon so as to sweep the boss. Pineco is the best (arguably) hazard setter in Pokemon, as he can learn the main hazards for any team and also has Sturdy to back it up. Beldum’s evolution is Metagross, one of the most powerful and tank offensive PROwesses (see the pun haha I’m so funny) in the game. Each one of the three has different requirements.

 

As you can see, the Spawns for each pokemon differ heavily: Sentret has way, way too many spawn places, it spawns as a tier 1 in some of them (and in some, his evolution also spawns, which means that we can also hunt it down when evolved too). Pineco also has many spawns most of these are prohibitive (hard to find and hard to access areas). Beldum is beyond repair: not only is he restricted to incredibly hard to get areas (which require having beaten multiple regions), but he is expensive as hell to catch due to his absurdly low catch rate, rarity and places to hunt it. It is now time to get our tools!

 

 

The first clear tool to have is: Pokeballs. And for this, we will only focus on three types of pokeballs, as a main tool: Pokeballs (they’re extremely common, can be dug in dig spots, obtained in pokestops, they’re cheap and easily purchasable in any local shop), Ultraballs (these are a scam in my opinion, but PRO players will raise their pitchforks if I don’t post them). They are twice as effective than Pokeballs but six times as expensive. I guess you could also include Greatballs in the same category, one and a half times as good as a normal pokeball but three times the price. I simply don’t understand why they’re really used.) and finally, Master Balls.

 

Master Balls can be purchased with PvP and PvE coins or traded from other players. In ALL situations you should always carry a Master Ball to be able to capture any Shiny Pokemon you may encounter. Even Tier 1 Shinies will be worth a Master Ball, so it is always worth to get one to three of these at a time to capture shinies. These should also be used against Beldum, because the chances of capturing it are lower than most legendaries you’d use a Master Ball for.

 

The last optional balls you can carry are those such as Net Balls, Dusk Balls, Repeat Balls, Turn Balls, and more. These balls will situationally provide more benefits than Ultra Balls. A level ball will have up to an eight times (yes, you heard that right, EIGHT) higher chance to capture a pokemon whose level is atleast four times smaller than our pokemon’s. If we use a Magnemite at level 20 to capture a Sentret at level 3, as 3 x 4 = 12 and 12 is smaller than 20, Repeat Balls will be eight times more effective than a Pokeball, and four times more effective than an Ultraball. Love Balls will make your catching chances increase up to eight times if you use it with a wild pokemon who is the same species as yours, but the opposite gender (male Sentret vs female Sentret)

 

 

Optionally, we may opt to bring as many Super Repels as possible for the job. If we want to repel trick for the pokemon that we want to hunt, we will really need a lot of Super Repels! Super Repels are the most economic ones and they’re the ones that last the longest while being cheaper than Max Repels, who are a scam as they cost more than what they’re cost-effective. We can also use a Black Medallion to increase our Hidden Ability chances to 25% instead of 5% and we can also activate a Membership Medallion if we need to find a MS only pokemon!

 

 

If you want to read about Repel Trick, read this guide:

 

https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/95034-url

 

If you want to read about hunting for specific abilities, read this guide:

 

https://pokemonrevolution.net/forum/topic/153453-url

 

If you see that the pokemon is in an awkward area (such as Forest Pit), we will need to bring a HM Slave or a pokemon with the move Surf to navigate there. Other areas such as Meteor Falls might require Membership + Waterfall on one of our pokemon to hunt Deino. Other areas will require us to learn Dive and use it properly. Some pokemon will also need specific fishing rods! Get your proper HM Slaves before you start the job! I recommend Nidoking, Bibarel, Parasect (only Dry Skin or Damp) and Tentacruel for the job!

 

 

After we have found our Pokemon tools, we now need a few things. The first one is a False Swiper!

False Swipe is a move which will never lower the opponent’s max HP below 1. This is a move which we will abuse to reduce an opponent’s HP to the minimum so as to increase our chance of capturing them. However, this can severely backfire, as some pokemon are known to harm themselves with attacks such as Take Down, or even explode (yes, Graveler, I’m looking at you Exploding in Mt Silver).

 

These are extreme issues and we must always be concerned when we hunt pokemon such as Chansey and Beldum as they will use recoil moves that will sometimes accidentally faint themselves. And what if they’re a shiny and they faint themselves? Well, then you cry because you lost millions and millions of pokedollars of that sweet cash that you could’ve earned from Trade Chat. Thus, we will be using different False Swipers as we have different options to choose from.

 

We can choose the cheapest False Swiper in the game as Farfetch’d. He learns it at level 45 and is only around a Tier 3 pokemon which can be caught in Route 14 all day. He’s just your common and average Joe, lives his normal life, single, just fighting trainers daily on the bushes while going on his treechopping job. We will kidnap him to False Swipe wild pokemon for us! The next easy and normal option is to capture a Cubone, who is a Tier 6 and harder to obtain False Swiper. He learns it at level 27 and the main advantage is his tankiness: his base stats allow him to tank way more hits than Farfetch’d, who could barely stand a slap. We can use other pokemon such as Scyther, who also learns it, but he is way too hard to hunt.

 

 

Then, we also have to consider: what can we do if the opponent uses a self damaging move? Well, we thankfully can breathe as all wild pokemon who have self-damaging moves are moves that will not damage Ghost types. Thus, we can safely use Shedinja for the task. The only hard issue is that Shedinja is extremely hard to obtain as we must have access to Hoenn and Nincada is a really hard and high tier pokemon to hunt. However, any Shedinja will work, since he is immune to almost all moves. Beldum, Phanpy and other pokemon will not be able to damage themselves anymore, and we’ll be able to capture them with ease. For Exploders, we can get a Pokemon with the ability Damp like Quagsire or Poliwag.

 

 

After that, we need to get our Synchronise pokemon. If a Pokémon with Synchronize is in the first slot in the party when a wild Pokémon is encountered, there is a 50% chance that the game will force it to have the same Nature as the Pokémon in the first slot. The other 50% of the time, it will still randomly choose one of the 25 Natures, so the total chance of getting a matching nature is 52%.

 

We have three Synchronise pokemon we can use: Natu, who is a Tier 1, extremely easy to farm, Kadabra, who is harder to farm but has access to Role Play, which is a move that copies the opponent’s ability and shows us if it’s the ability we want, or Ralts, who can also have the ability Trace, which does the same as Role Play. As we’re treating it for newbies, we will use Natu, who can be headbutted and farmed in Kanto and Johto as a Tier 1, and we will use Kadabra to check the opponent’s ability.

 

 

Finally, we need two extra tools: the first one is an obligatory one, which is a pokemon that can apply status. We DO NOT WANT TO BURN OR POISON THE WILD POKEMON. Remember that. If we do, we’re in a race against time to see if we can capture them before they faint. NEVER run any moves that can accidentally status them the wrong way nor use a pokemon with Effect Spore. They can cause poisoning and accidentally faint the opponent. We want a pokemon such as Vileplume to Stun Spore or Sleep Powder wild pokemon that we find so that they are easier to catch. Keep in mind some pokemon are immune to certain status.

 

 

Fire is immune to Burn, Poison Steel to Poison, Electric is immune to all Paralysation related status moves, Ice is immune to Freeze. Some abilities also make the opponent immune to status: Immunity to Poison, Limber to Paralysis, Magma Armor to Freeze, Insomnia to Sleep and Water Veil to Burn. Study the pokemon’s abilities and typing to your advantage.

 

Don’t use Thunder Wave against a Ground pokemon, use Stun Spore instead. Or make them asleep with Spore or Sleep Powder. Keep in mind that Grass Pokemon are also immune to Spore related moves.

 

The last tool is to bring a Golduck with Soak if we want pokemon that are immune to False Swipe, which mainly is Ghost Types. Since they’re immune to the Normal Type, they cannot be False Swiped unless you use Soak on them. If you use this move, they’ll become a Water Type and we will be able to hit them!

 

 

Time to hunt!

 

We have now looked at Sentret. It shows us that he spawns all day in Route 39 as a Tier 1 and that Furret also spawns there as a Tier 2. Not only that, but Miltank and Pineco also spawn there! If we bring an Impish Sync, we can get four good pokemon in one go! We will head there and capture any of these. We’re looking for an Impish Sentret, Furret or Pineco for our Boss Team. We are also looking for the Defense, Special Defense and HP stat to be 20 or over 20. Miltank would also be a cool addition as I really like Gen 2 Pokemon! (It’s my favourite gen!)

 

My team will look like this:

First position – Impish Sync. This is ESSENTIAL. NEVER HUNT WITHOUT A SYNCH POKEMON.

Second position – Anything you think can help out with the capture. I’ll bring Magnezone to paralyse these pokemon.

Third position – Shedinja (False Swiper) I use Shedinja because Pineco has Take Down and can damage and faint itself.

Fourth position – (Optional) Damp pokemon to avoid Pineco using Selfdestruct.

Fifth position (Optional) Soak pokemon (Golduck, who learns the move Soak) for Ghost Types.

 

 

We will look in the grass until we find our desired pokemon. Once we find it, we can start fighting and hunting it!

 

 

We will first false swipe it once we find it. We will then status and capture it!

 

 

If we’re satisfied with it, we’ll keep it.

 

 

If you got lucky, congratulations! You now know how to hunt a pokemon! Keep this one or get a better one if you’re lucky or you want to try it more!

 

I hope this guide has helped newbies throughout PRO to understand how basic hunting works!

Edited September 10, 2020 by Bhimoso

[Bhimoso]

I'm fixing the guide, something went wrong and the text copied wrong LOL.

 

Alright, screw it. I REMOVED ALL THE SPOILERS. It kept bugging and it's 3 AM. I worked on hours to pump this guide out. I'll go and sleep and tomorrow I'll pump another guide out. Goodnight :)

Edited August 9, 2020 by Bhimoso

[Iceflake]

Great guide like always Bhimoso, keep up the good work.

[Momot]

As for good Places to catch certain Pokemon I recently realised a pretty good way to get some Pokemon: The EV-Train Routes, especially the first two ones.

 

First is in Kanto, Route 24. You can easily get Pidgy and Coffing from your Boss guide and also Caterpy (thought you probably got one and Butterfly isn't that good), Jiglypuff (is T4 and the hardest to hunt there), Oddish, Kappy and Tentacool. You can try catch a Slowking here but he is harder to get than a Slowpoke elswhere and as a evolution harder to train.

 

Next is Johto, Route 31: Here you can farm Sentrets. Also Ghastly, Sandshred, Zubat, Whooper and Seel but they are more situational and as Ghastly as a Desteny-Boder does not need best IVs you probably already have one.

 

The others I just know theoreticly, since I haven't reached them yet, so take my take with a grain of salt.

 

Hoenn is imo situational: On Route 120 Mareep and the Nidorans are available long before, but if you are farming for IVs it might help. The rest are already available in EV-Zones or are evolved.

 

In Sinnoh afaik it is somewhat better: Route 208 features Dunspace, Patrat, and Licktung (Rarer) as new Pokemon.

 

I know these Infos are probably quite obvious to most players, but again, since I didn't think of them as easy farms until recently, I think other newbies may apreciate the hint. I knew I would.

[Bhimoso]

As for good Places to catch certain Pokemon I recently realised a pretty good way to get some Pokemon: The EV-Train Routes, especially the first two ones.

 

First is in Kanto, Route 24. You can easily get Pidgy and Coffing from your Boss guide and also Caterpy (thought you probably got one and Butterfly isn't that good), Jiglypuff (is T4 and the hardest to hunt there), Oddish, Kappy and Tentacool. You can try catch a Slowking here but he is harder to get than a Slowpoke elswhere and as a evolution harder to train.

 

Next is Johto, Route 31: Here you can farm Sentrets. Also Ghastly, Sandshred, Zubat, Whooper and Seel but they are more situational and as Ghastly as a Desteny-Boder does not need best IVs you probably already have one.

 

The others I just know theoreticly, since I haven't reached them yet, so take my take with a grain of salt.

 

Hoenn is imo situational: On Route 120 Mareep and the Nidorans are available long before, but if you are farming for IVs it might help. The rest are already available in EV-Zones or are evolved.

 

In Sinnoh afaik it is somewhat better: Route 208 features Dunspace, Patrat, and Licktung (Rarer) as new Pokemon.

 

I know these Infos are probably quite obvious to most players, but again, since I didn't think of them as easy farms until recently, I think other newbies may apreciate the hint. I knew I would.

 

I'll probably note them down in my other guide, it could be interesting. Thank you!

[Algerie31]

nice guide bro

[Bhimoso]

Fixed this guide too! 4 guides fixed, only 10+ to fix now :)

[Gagans]

WTF this Guide had some info that even I didn't know... better change its name from "For Newbies" to "For Everyone". Now I realised how noobie I was in hunting

Edited September 11, 2020 by onkar

[Carlosvh96]

Senor mio, this is a masterpiece, keep delivering this high quality content pls