I just got back from dinner out and I made 2 successful curveballs and one nice curveball (though the catch stats called it a 'nice throw', is that normal?).
Still far from being able to achieve excellent though.

Experience will show nice throw and then another for curve I believe.

As separate stats you mean?
No, that didn't happen, it just gave me a 'nice throw' but it was a curveball. Is this a glitch?

I figure any "nice" throw would count for it. I'm using mostly curveballs now. I can hit but not always with a rating. I'm backwards from Coda. I spin counter-clockwise and launch up and right. You a lefty perchance, Coda?

Didn't get out today to go raid hunting. Hard to even get out of bed. Maybe tomorrow when I'm out with my mom.

.3 KM to go on my second KY egg.


Things like spheals or wailmers are great for getting good shots on, as the circle is huge. For some reason, the stantler I caught the other day also had a big circle. You also just need the throw, not the catch, so if you hit a hard to catch big pokemon, and you have excess regular balls, just throw those until you get your shots.

I'm a righty and have been spinning clockwise and launching from the right.

Well now that I want a raid to show, no raids, or not without driving. Blah. At least I don't have to win.

My gym has gotta raid in 30 minutes.
I concur with the relief that it's not necessary to win. I've ever won one raid.

I got a win a raid task .....only problem I can't go to raids :( hard to do raids when I never drive by one at the right time

I feel that but fortunately, the ones that require you to win are just field research that can be dismissed. I don't recall having to win a raid in the special research.

I got my raid! And now need three new friends but my app decided as of maybe half an hour after said raid to not open anymore. It updated recently so maybe it's that? Anyone else having problems?

I'm right-handed. The motion is entirely natural for me to do.

So my annoyance with the Celebi requirements has grown another step. Requiring making friends is an ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE piece of game design on Niantic's part. As I said before, if you jumped on making friends as soon as the feature was enabled, then you're going to have to resort to making random friends from the Internet or losing your friendship progress with three of your existing friends.

But on top of that: Child accounts can't do it at all because they can't use the social features.

So now A Ripple In Time is stuck at 2/8 for my son for another YEAR AND A HALF.

Joy. I'm on the friend thing, though I haven't pestered relatives yet. A couple played, but Pokemon might not be "cool" anymore.

This reminds me of Farmville. Must have neighbors to get a larger farm.

Re-install fixed the log-in issues. Also, sent a friend request Rum.

Oh thank goodness. Niantic is actually working on parental controls for child accounts.

So just for fun I actually tried the clockwise spin and launch to the left and got a "great" shot first try. I had to think about it though. I'm sorta left-vs-right depending on the situation.

Thanx for the friend adds folks, task complete.

Now my biggest challenge is battle in ten raids. I've already missed two at the gym a two-minute walk from me and the first was totally out of stupidity!
My two others are close behind, evolving a Magikarp and evolved grass type.

Ugh, and my curveballs are still pretty bad tough my aim is improving. I can get it in the Pokemon's direction about half the time.

I've had log-in problems somewhat frequently. Logging out, closing the game, reopening it and logging back in solved it for me.
The problem seems to have desisted since I connected to Facebook strangely. It's only happened about twice after that--so far.

I need the magikarp and evolve an evolved too D:

I DEMAND MAGIKARP SACRIFICES!

Well at last, I'm on the raid board, got my first one.
I've only got one raid pass left, ugh I keep forgetting you need the damn things to get into a raid.

I've decided I hate the raid concept.

You get one each time you go to a gym, so at least you can do one per day

Got my gyrados, and my ghosts! But dangit, 10 raids! That's worse than the ghosts!

Also I have a Kentucky ice shrew and diglett with a bit of hair. California egg is incubating. Sooooo many houndour here.

I caught another Larvitar :D

And raids are good. But I only go after 1 and 2 stars lol

I had a stupid moment.... So I'm like it's been a while since my eggs hatched and I'm like ok I finally stopped catching Pokemon and evolving etc to actually check on my eggs and welp I FORGOT TO EVEN INCUBATE THEM welp duh that's why none are hatching lol

Is that right? That I didn't know. Still can't control the time though and that's sort of important to me.
See I have to walk my dogs every afternoon and one of them isn't friendly but we've got an elementary school at the end of our street.
Fortunately, that first raid showed up right when I usually walk them.

I could go without the dogs, it's literally about two-three houses down from me.

Well damn, still a bit under a 100 candies short of my gyrados.
The ghosts were actually worse for me than the raids. Even at night ghosts are scarce here. I thought I'd fucking NEVER finish that!

Now if it were 'WIN 10 raids' I'd agree, that'd be worse than the ghosts. Probably due to the timing, I'm always alone when I enter raid battles and my pokemon can hardly take on a standard gym battle.

And of course, skiploom is the only grass pokemon popping up right now, rather than chikorita, treeko or oddish, the second stages of which are the three evolved grass types I have.
UGH!

Second raid down, 8 more to go.
I even won this one, I fought to win this one because it was an Aloan Raichu and I wanted it.
BUT THE MOTHERFUCKER DIDN'T CATCH!
Why doesn't it allow you to use your own pokeballs after the premiere balls run out?!

I was already disappointed enough because I was researching getting Mewtwo and figuring out that with the bullshit EX raid system, I'll probably never get one.

I've NEVER failed a raid catch. I've had it take a few attempts but I've never gotten less than 7 Premiere Balls. Did you not use the Golden Razz Berries it gave you? That's what they're for.

Crap, I didn't. I didn't know that.

Golden razzberries do not help in my opinion. If it isn't legendary and I participated, I caught it. Legendaries? Well, I have a zapdos from a raid? Golden razberries never made a difference on catching legendaries.

Work on your curveball throws, they do help a lot.

They totally help. They're 3x more potent than a Razz Berry.

Catch bonuses:
* Poke Ball: 1x, Great Ball: 1.5x, Ultra Ball: 2x
* Razz Berry: 1.5x, Golden Razz Berry: 2.5x
* Curve ball: 1.7x
* Nice: 1x-1.3x, Great: 1.3x-1.7x, Excellent: 1.7x-2x
* Bronze Medal: 1.1x, Silver Medal: 1.2x, Gold Medal: 1.3x

Yes, this means "Nice" could potentially not be any better than not hitting the inner ring at all. It actually scales with how small the circle is and the message just gives a hint.

If a Pokemon has two types, the medal bonuses average (so if you have a Silver medal for Normal types and a Bronze medal for Flying types you'll get a 1.15x bonus against a Fearow).

So your odds of catching a legendary with a single Premiere Ball using Golden Razz Berry and landing a Great curveball is about the same as if you had landed 6-7 Premiere Balls with straight throws and no Great.

Well, for me, golden razberries have never made a difference. That ring was as red as ever no matter the ball (in research legendaries, but 0% flee rate so...) or berry combination.

And where is the premier ball chance? The only ball you can use in raids. Are they the same or higher than basic pokeballs?

And on every single legendary, a golden razberry did not change the color of the circle so it is such a small help you might as well just keep it to fully heal your pokemon at a gym or for a rare spawning pokemon in your area.

Any curveball, for me, seems to help more than golden razzberries. Which does not make sense by your numbers above since my curves tend to be nice or just a curveball.

That"s also part of the reason I rarely do legendary raids....no point in trying to catch them because it isn't gonna happen due to no bonus balls really due to being team Instinct in my area.

Well, I'm confused now regarding the golden razzbarries.
I'm guessing an Aloan Raichu can't be obtained via evolution?

As for curveballs, I've been practicing, I'm still bad at getting the Pokemon encased but my aim is improving. I'm now able to get it to go in the Pokemon's direction at least.

Well, with non-legendaries it does help, that includes alolan raichu which cannot be gotten through evolution because there is no alolan pikachu. It would be nice if they would let you have a chance at normal pokemon in the alolan eggs, ones with an alolan evolution and if you keep and evolve it? Alolan evolution for you! (I know it won't happen lol)

Noted for next time.
Today's raid was a Pokemon there wasted on, a Makohita. Don't want one but if I did they pop up in the wild all the time so I left as soon as it counted towards my mission. Didn't even battle.

Premiere Balls are probably 1x, but it doesn't matter because the rest of the bonuses are multiplicative. You can compare with a berry vs. without a berry and it'll always be the same comparison regardless of the ball.

I plan to use the golden razzberries next time but the last two raids I've gotten were worthless to me to the point where I didn't even care to fight, I just went it so it counted towards the mission and then left right away.

I need moar makuhita

MY last raid was kirlia...need moar. Need Gardevoir.

I got a Kirlia from a raid but the stats kinda sucked. Still crossing my fingers for getting a better Ralts/Kirlia to drop between now and the time I get enough candy to evolve.

Well from what I've seen IV does not matter too much. Like my best pokemon supposedly has poor iv, but....still does well in raids and all that.

My second to last raid was a makuhita. I have no interest in them.
I got a Raltz from the wild, so don't need a raid Kirlia either.

An Aloan Marawak raid just ended at my gym but I could hardly touch the damn thing. :(

IVs don't matter as much as the species, level, and movepool, for sure. But it does add up: at level 30, a 45 IV Vaporeon is ~350 CP tougher than a 0 IV one. And the way the damage formula works, having high Defense IVs could make a HUGE difference for the survivability of a glass cannon type like Alakazam. And since you've gotta catch a ton of them to get enough candy in the first place, it's worth aiming for the best you can get -- why compromise if you've gotta do the work anyway?

I've never understood IVs. '^_^