After a year of long wait, the rare legendaries in Pokemon Go have finally arrived as raid champions in our gyms! For an entire year, trainers have not been able to fill up their Pokedex due to notable omissions of the legendary Pokemon. These legendary birds are now within your grasp but only during specific periods, one per week, until your chances end on 14 August 2017. We are here to help you maximise your chances with everything you need to know to catch Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres!
Know The Hunting Periods
To strategize, you will need to know your legendaries available periods. Articuno will be released first and will be available until 31 July. Moltres will be up next from 31 July to 7 August and last but not least, Zapdos is up for grabs between 7 to 14 August.
Is This The Only Chance?
Likely but we cannot be sure. A Niantic spokesperson shared ‘Legendaries are special in the world of Pokémon and their appearances are very rare.’
What About Lugia?
Well, the legendary Pokemon Lugia does not seem to be getting the same ‘atas’ treatment. While Niantic is offering up the three legendary birds for a limited period, there’s no mention of Lugia being available for only a short time.
How To Spot A Legendary Raid?
Well, we believe many of you should not need help in this aspect but for the benefit of folks who have not switch on their app for quite awhile, we shall walk you through. Though legendary raids are similar to standard Raid Battles in many ways, there are several differences in both their appearance and capture.
Legendary Pokemon will only be available via Legendary Raids and are the highest difficulty of Raid Battles. A special Legendary Egg will appear over a Gym when a Legendary Raid is due to go live.
Legendaries have the highest CP of any Raid creature, with Articuno at 37,603 and Lugia at 42,753. Once the battle is over, the Legendary must still be captured like any other Raid (what the hell seriously right). The capture rate is reported to now be 3%, so have some Golden Razz Berries at hand to increase your chances.
Once you have captured the Legendary, you cannot use it to defend Gyms – but they can, of course, be used to attack gyms (in fact, Articuno makes a great counter to Lugia).
What Are Your Chances?
Increase Your Chances!
To drastically increase your chances of catching, you have to rely on your Golden Razz Berries (damn we need more of these) and of course, your skills at Curveballs (spin your Pokeball before releasing your throw). If you suck at curveballs, you will be happy to know that Nice, Great, and Excellent throws increase your chances too, and there’s also a small bonus for having a Bronze, Silver, or Gold Medal.
Here’s the ultimate combination – A Golden Razz Berry, Curveball, and Excellent throw, with a Gold medal for that Legendary’s Type will give you a 24% chance of catching the Legendary – meaning one in roughly four throws like this will catch it, which is much better considering the roughly 5-13 balls that will be available!
Of course, the more “good” throws you have, the better odds you have of catching Articuno. Hitting Articuno with five “great” curve balls throws with berry and medal bonuses would give trainers about a 65% chance of catching Articuno (when factoring escape rate in) compared to about 50% before.
Ultimately, catching Articuno (and the other Legendary Birds) comes down to luck and odds. There’s no fool-proof way to catch Articuno, but last night’s tweak should make a big difference for a lot of trainers.
Powering Up Your Legendaries
Good luck to you if you are looking to power up your legendary Pokemon because the Buddy Distance for Legendaries is 20km per one Candy! It may be easier trading in your weaker ones
We hope you find the above information useful.All the best to you in catching your first legendaries! Do share your experience with us in the comments section below.