Chaining successful captures and defeats has been a thing in Pokémon since Diamond & Pearl with the PokéRadar item, but Pokémon Let’s Go, Pikachu! & Let’s Go, Eevee! have brought it back to the forefront, with the whole system being made crystal-clear via the new Catch Combo mechanic.
As there are no 'wild' battles, in order to combo a Pokémon, you have to catch the same species over and over without catching another species, having a Pokémon run from you, or saving and closing the game. You can leave the area you are catching the Pokémon at any time and return to continue the combo.
So what does the Catch Combo provide? That’s a very simple thing to answer. Catch Combos allow for you to find Pokémon with better IVs and increase your chances to get a Shiny Pokémon. This is a vital thing for collectors and competitive players alike.
So let’s start with the IVs of a Pokémon. For those who don’t know, IVs are the genetics of the Pokémon and run at a value between 0 and 31, with each value indicating the equivalent of 1 Stat Point at Level 100, calculated at lower values as your level is lower. With catch combos, you’ll find that every 10 Pokémon in the combo will reward you a guaranteed IV that is maximum.
- Chains 11 & over: 2 Max IVs
- Chains 21 & over: 3 Max IVs
- Chains 31 & over: 4 Max IVs
Contrary to reports on the internet, it doesn’t get higher than this, but you can always get 5 or 6 max IVs; it’s a 1 in 31 chance for each IVs to be max, and therefore only a 1 in 961 chance to get a perfect Pokémon if you continue catching. Do note that this boost only exists for Pokémon of the same species, so if you have a chain of Growlithe but move to a Dodrio, the Dodrio has no guaranteed max IVs.
Moving onto the next element of the Catch Combo is the Rare Spawn system. Each route has got a variety of Pokémon that don’t appear in the location in the Pokédex but have a slim chance of appearing. This ranges from Chansey in most areas to Kanto starters, Charizard in the sky and even the Legendary Birds!
Increasing your Catch Combo actually increased the odds of these Pokémon appearing, maxing out again at combos of 31 or over. To make it even better, you don’t need to have the Catch Combo be in the same route, so if you pile up a combo of 31 Caterpie in Viridian Forest, you can go to Cerulean Cave to get a Snorlax to appear.
Finally, we've got the element that most people care about, Shiny Pokémon. Shiny Pokémon, in general, have a 1 in 4096 chance of appearing, 1 in 1365 if you have the Shiny Charm. However, this is improved greatly when you use Catch Combos, especially if you use them in conjunction with lures. If you have a Shiny Charm and a combo of 31 or higher, you are 15 times more likely to get a Shiny Pokémon spawn.
Combo | Standard | Lures | Shiny Charm | Shiny Charm & Lures |
---|---|---|---|---|
0-10 | 1 in 4096 | 1 in 2048 | 1 in 1365.333 | 1 in 1024 |
11-20 | 1 in 1024 | 1 in 819.2 | 1 in 682.6667 | 1 in 585.1429 |
21-30 | 1 in 512 | 1 in 455.1111 | 1 in 409.6 | 1 in 372.3636 |
31+ | 1 in 341.3333 | 1 in 315.0769 | 1 in 292.5714 | 1 in 273.0667 |
And that’s everything there is to know about Catch Combos. What have you all managed to combo?
This article is part of our Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee guide series. If you're looking to catch specific Pokémon in the game, check out our guides on How To Get To The Power Plant And Capture Zapdos, How To Unlock Mew, How To Catch Articuno, How To Get Bulbasaur, Charmander And Squirtle The Easy Way, and How To Catch Shiny Pokémon With Catch Combos. We also have handy guides detailing How To Check IVs And Catch Pokémon With Flawless IVs, How To Use Candy To Get The Most Powerful Pokémon, and How To Battle Red.
Comments 23
The legendary birds rare spawn?! Awesome! I'd love to encounter one just for the thrill of it.
I've sought and found me a lovely Porygon. It's just a shame that I can't use an eviolite on it as its stats are quite poor, even by gen I standards. I would have considered shiny hunting for a Porygon if only the encounter rate wasn't so ridiculously low.
Like @Spectra just said, you get huge amounts of EXP once a chain is going. I got 20+ Ghastly in a row and was getting upwards of 1300 exp every catch after 20.
Right now I’m dedicating a few PoGo parks to dupes so I can get some chains going
So increasing your Catch Combo also increase the odds of rare spawns? That explains why I never get a combo above 13 since I always find something like a Chansey or Kangaskhan to break it.
I get distracted easily
@BladedKnight You're not. When I bought Moon is 2016 I was exactly like you. I started digging here and there and got really into that thing. It felt like discovering a new game inside Pokemon.
It appears to be too overwhelming but it's actually alright.
Once I got into shiny hunting it renewed my interest in the series and I wasn't even losing my interest at the time. It does add another element to the game with all the different shiny hunting methods across each game.
@Arcamenel I love shiny hunting also!
Where do you get the pokeballs for this? After the initial batch, for the early part of the game pokeballs are at a premium. Aren't they?
@riChchestM
Pokeballs can be still be bought at a PokeMart, thought they've brought the price down from 200 to 100. Also most trainers you beat will give you some as well.
Oh gosh I knew game freak couldn’t leave the complicated meta game out. But something for the pokefanatics to enjoy. I do find the complaints about the game’s complexity to be hilarious. It’s not insane but it is not super simple by any means.
Wow there is a lot more to this catching than I thought!
@BladedKnight I agree. Maybe I’m just too old now to get interested in the whole shiny Pokémon. I fell off playing after the original gold and silver and let’s go is my fist entry back into the series since then.
@Arcamenel I’m currently working towards the shiny living dex 😍
Don't care about that crap system. Never got into IV's and don't think ever wil. They should have removed nature as well. Just let me enjoy my single player experience in piece
I found a shiny Jigglypuff just hanging out in the wild! I got lucky
Hey I caught a Charizard mini in Pokemon Go-Pikachu and now looking in Go-Eevee for Charizard as well. Now is a wait game running around Go Switch to find another. But i will say you will lose a lot of pokeballs trying to learn how to use the PokeBall setup for either games. So get a lot of PokeBalls if you have the cash. And that's without using the Lure or specials items to get rare Pokemon to come out I did have to wait for some time though so it's a waiting game to get one. And some of them were hard to learn the toss-I was like what the F^^^ common and no one throw is the same but you have to time the toss and if they are moving the right directions. That was a lot of work to do right if you get it right. So the Pokeballs does introduce more challenge other then getting the pokemon.
@Balta666 How do IVs and nature get in the way of your single-player experience? You can 100% ignore them and still complete the main game.
@Jamaal121 the IV does not but the nature absolutely does as I would prefer all Pokémon of the same level to be equal. It just brings a boring randomisation
@Balta666 again, you could beat the entirety of the main game literally without having even heard of what Natures are. They don't create a big enough difference between Pokemon to where nature farming is necessary for anything other than competitive advantages.
@Ryu_Niiyama It's funny though, because this IS super simple for Pokémon.
Like, any game before this you'd have to monitor EVERYTHING yourself. There was NO way you could guarantee you'd be able to keep up a chain. It was complete RNG, and you had no extra chance of getting a shiny until 70+ chains, bar shiny charm ofc.
Even with all that, IVs were still not guaranteed to be 4 max or something crazy like that. It also didn't guarantee decent stats in the 2 non-max IVs (which Let's Go does, weirdly enough.)
So this is like going two steps beyond "dumbing down" into the area of "even a simpleton can understand it".
It might still seem complicated to some people, but within Pokémon, this is on the low end as far as brain activity requirements go.
I disagree. Many generations ago I was not understanding why one of my favourite Pokemons looked nerfed in that game until I noticed that his nature was making his attack weaker.
@Blizzia welp to non pokefanatics who just want to enjoy the game like myself there is more than enough metagame. And its still complicated. But I am sure this game will continue to be the hill that people want to die on. I will be enjoying a pokemon game for the first time since gold in the meantime. As the whining is meaningless to me.
@Balta666 Many people have beaten Pokemon games without remotely understanding what natures are, none of my friends ever knew what they did, I didn't know exactly what they did until Gen. 6 maybe and I finished every game before (and after) without paying attention to them. Nerfed is a bit of an exaggeration, tell me of a situation in the games where you actively needed a Pokemon of a certain nature to defeat a main game gym leader or trainer.
@Jamaal121 I am not saying that, just that it's stats were worse then I would expect (in general it is one of the features that I don't like that was added in the latest generations). As I said prior I am a gen 1 guy as I find that it has the most sound RPG mechanics and would be very happy to have only some quality of life added to it.
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