Pokemon Go Guide: When to Throw Your Pokeball

Pokemon Go is all about finding and catching Pokemon. This makes Pokeballs, and how you throw them, one of the core principles of the entire game. You can track down and find the toughest, most rare Pokemon of them all, but if you don’t know how to throw the Pokeball well, he’s just gonna get away. There are many aspects to the Pokeball throwing process, but we’re gonna focus in on one that seems like a big question for a lot of players. We’re gonna tell you when to throw your Pokeball in Pokemon Go.

First off, before you even have a chance to throw a Pokeball, you need to find the Pokemon you want. We have a bunch of guides on this topic, so check them out here and here before proceeding on.

OK, now that you know how to find a Pokemon, let’s get into the nitty gritty of catching them. First off, there are actually a few things to keep in mind when deciding when to throw your Pokeball in Pokemon Go. The Pokemon can attack at any time, so you must be wary of throwing your Pokeball, only to see it batted away to the ground.

Also, if you are using AR, you need to center the Pokemon on your screen as much as possible, otherwise it will be much easier to toss it to the side. You want your Pokeball to fly out and hit the Pokemon right in the middle of the contracting circle on your screen. In fact, you want this circle to be the smallest it can be, as this will increase your chances of catching the Pokemon, while giving you a shot at an XP boost.

The XP boost is different depending on the size of the circle. Close to max, when the green/yellow/red circle is near the edge, hitting inside of it will give you a Nice Shot bonus of 10XP. At about halfway it will be a Great Shot, giving you 50XP. Finally if it is about 25% size, if you hit in the middle, you’ll get an Excellent Shot for 100XP bonus.

You can also get an XP and catch rate boost for throwing a curveball. You do this by taking the Pokeball and spinning it with your finger. Eventually it will sort of whirl around shooting out small sparks. Toss it to the side, because it will curve one way or the other. If you get it right and hit the Pokemon you’ll get a boost of 10XP.

That’s pretty much all you need to keep in mind when deciding when to throw your Pokeball in Pokemon Go. As long as you hit the Pokemon and they don’t attack your Pokeball away you’ll get a shot at capturing them. Remember the rest of this for those tougher ones that come along in Pokemon Go.