(Also known as "STOP ROARING AND STAY IN THE *$#!ing BALL")
So after catching three roamers in one night, I feel sufficiently qualified to write a simple guide to catching them without losing all of your hair in the process, and without needing a Master Ball. This was written based on research from two 4th-gen games (SoulSilver and Diamond). Due to the differing way roamers are tracked in Black and White, this technique may not work there - I'm currently not far enough in the games to test. If you try it, please report back!
So, here's a checklist of the things you will need:
Okay, the method is pretty simple: After stocking up on Pokéballs, go to your chosen two routes. Both routes should have tall grass on them - as long as there is a path between you and the grass that doesn't cross unbattled Trainers, you'll be fine. For speed's sake, it should not be between two routes connected by a gate. It should also not be a route and a town, as if your Roamer appears nearby while you're in a town, you have to cross a route boundary to get to it and it'll flee.
Once you've found two suitable routes, go and stand on the dviding line. This can be found by a slight delay when you cross it, and the name of the new route will appear in the top corner. For illustration, the aforementioned Route 36/37 border in Johto is one tile below the Trainer Tips sign. If you're following my example, go and stand next to the Trainer Tips sign, or otherwise stand on one side of the line on any other route.
Now, either open your Pokégear and look at the Town Map or pull up the Marking Map on your Pokétch (the map application). You'll see the icons of your available roamers on the map. If it's not on the same route as you, walk over the diving line to the next route. Look at your Map again. The Roamer will have moved - it will do so every time you cross a route boundary line. If it's not there, walk back over the line again. Rinse and repeat, looking at your Map every time, until a Roamer is in your route. The trick here is that you're only moving one tile to change routes, and are also avoiding fruitlessly chasing the legends down, which saves untold amounts of time.
When the magic happens, and a roamer has appeared on your route according to your Map, **DO NOT CROSS THE DIVIDNG LINE!** If you do, the Roamer will change routes and get away. Calmly and without panicking, walk over to the nearest patch of grass on your route. You will probably not walk into the Roamer first time - don't panic. Just do what you usually do with wild Pokémon - kill it, catch it, run away - just keep walking around until the super-special event music plays. Congratulations; a wild roamer is in your sights!
This step is only needed if you have used a Mean Look Pokémon - Wobbuffet users can skip this step. The first thing you should do is to use Mean Look. No, don't start throwing Pokéballs, attacking, or anything else. Your Roamer can and will get away if you do any of these. Use Mean Look. Okay. Done that? Good.
Right, with Mean Look and/or Wobbuffet deployed, it's time to start whittling the rage-inducing creatures down. I can only advise on the Smeargle route, so here goes: Firstly, if you can, send it to sleep - Spore is good for this, as Hypnosis can miss. This will prevent it from giving you too much of a kicking, and also raise your chances of a catch rate, which are inevitably horrible anyway. If not, start kicking the bugger.
The way I do it is as follows, your mileage may vary: After Mean Looking it, I Spore it to sleep and then start using Super Fang to reduce its health. Once it's sufficiently low, use False Swipe to reduce its health down to 1HP for the greatest chances of capture. If it uses Roar, it just escaped anyway - without a Wobbuffet, you can't really help that.
Anyway, once its health is sufficiently low, start throwing Pokéballs. Your chances of success are greatest if it is at low HP, and is either asleep or frozen, although sleep is much easier to do. If it wakes up, send it straight back to sleep again; any turn it gets to attack (or Roar) makes your Pokémon suffer.
At this point, all you can do is to throw Pokéballs until it is caught. It can take anything from five balls to upwards of fifty. Just keep at it, you'll get it eventually. After a long, hard slog, you'll have it in your sweating, exhausted hands - congratulations! Now you only need to go back to a Pokémon Center, heal up, and start the whole process again for the rest of the Roamers...
To recap for tl;dr people:
* Find two routes, both with grass. Stand next to the line between the two routes.
* Check your map. If roamer is not on your route, cross line and start this step again.
* If roamer has appeared, make haste to grass, and keep encountering Pokémon until you come across the roamer.
* Use Mean Look or Wubbuffet, try and bring it down to low health and, if you can, send it to sleep.
* Throw all the Pokéballs in your possession until you run out, get Roar'd, or (hopefully) catch it.
Good luck!
This guide was brought to you by Entei, Raikou, Latios, Cresselia, Mesprit, and most importantly Code Geass, for something to do while walking backwards and forwards for half an hour.
Note: This guide is in beta forme, so any improvements/corrections/insults are welcomed - especially regarding its relevance to Gen V games. Coming sometime in the future is also a decent location for baiting Hoenn's roamers, which I have used but need to find again, as I didn't write it down.
So after catching three roamers in one night, I feel sufficiently qualified to write a simple guide to catching them without losing all of your hair in the process, and without needing a Master Ball. This was written based on research from two 4th-gen games (SoulSilver and Diamond). Due to the differing way roamers are tracked in Black and White, this technique may not work there - I'm currently not far enough in the games to test. If you try it, please report back!
So, here's a checklist of the things you will need:
- You need either:
A Pokémon with Mean Look as the leading member of your party OR
A Wobbuffet as the leading member of your party, whose Shadow Tag ability will prevent escape, and also nulls the effects of Roar on top of that.
I personally use a Smeargle with Mean Look (to prevent escape), Spore (to send it to sleep), Super Fang (to halve its health - don't use Hyper Fang!), and False Swipe (to attack it and leave it at exactly 1HP. This took ages to get, so you can probably get away with just Mean Look and Spore - and this role can be split across multiple Pokémon, so you can have one to Mean Look and another to whittle its health down.
- As is usual for legendaries, as many Pokéballs of your chosen type - Dusk Balls for catching at night, Ultra Balls otherwise - as you can fit in your bag. It's worth noting that if you have gone down the route of using a Pokémon with Mean Look, Quick Balls will be useless to you - if you don't spend the first turn using Mean Look, your quarry will get away.
- Two routes, with grass, adjacent to each other.
My preferred spots for this - and these are by no means the only or best options! - are:
In Johto, the two routes below Ecruteak City - Route 36 and 37. I used these routes to catch Raikou and Entei.
In Kanto, Routes 14 and 15 - make sure you've beaten the four Trainers near Route 14's patch of grass first!
In Sinnoh, the boundary between Routes 210 and 215, north of Solaceon Town.
- Patience. Lots of patience. The ability to avoid punching valuable objects, like your DS, when something goes wrong and the roamer gets away.
Okay, the method is pretty simple: After stocking up on Pokéballs, go to your chosen two routes. Both routes should have tall grass on them - as long as there is a path between you and the grass that doesn't cross unbattled Trainers, you'll be fine. For speed's sake, it should not be between two routes connected by a gate. It should also not be a route and a town, as if your Roamer appears nearby while you're in a town, you have to cross a route boundary to get to it and it'll flee.
Once you've found two suitable routes, go and stand on the dviding line. This can be found by a slight delay when you cross it, and the name of the new route will appear in the top corner. For illustration, the aforementioned Route 36/37 border in Johto is one tile below the Trainer Tips sign. If you're following my example, go and stand next to the Trainer Tips sign, or otherwise stand on one side of the line on any other route.
Now, either open your Pokégear and look at the Town Map or pull up the Marking Map on your Pokétch (the map application). You'll see the icons of your available roamers on the map. If it's not on the same route as you, walk over the diving line to the next route. Look at your Map again. The Roamer will have moved - it will do so every time you cross a route boundary line. If it's not there, walk back over the line again. Rinse and repeat, looking at your Map every time, until a Roamer is in your route. The trick here is that you're only moving one tile to change routes, and are also avoiding fruitlessly chasing the legends down, which saves untold amounts of time.
When the magic happens, and a roamer has appeared on your route according to your Map, **DO NOT CROSS THE DIVIDNG LINE!** If you do, the Roamer will change routes and get away. Calmly and without panicking, walk over to the nearest patch of grass on your route. You will probably not walk into the Roamer first time - don't panic. Just do what you usually do with wild Pokémon - kill it, catch it, run away - just keep walking around until the super-special event music plays. Congratulations; a wild roamer is in your sights!
This step is only needed if you have used a Mean Look Pokémon - Wobbuffet users can skip this step. The first thing you should do is to use Mean Look. No, don't start throwing Pokéballs, attacking, or anything else. Your Roamer can and will get away if you do any of these. Use Mean Look. Okay. Done that? Good.
Right, with Mean Look and/or Wobbuffet deployed, it's time to start whittling the rage-inducing creatures down. I can only advise on the Smeargle route, so here goes: Firstly, if you can, send it to sleep - Spore is good for this, as Hypnosis can miss. This will prevent it from giving you too much of a kicking, and also raise your chances of a catch rate, which are inevitably horrible anyway. If not, start kicking the bugger.
The way I do it is as follows, your mileage may vary: After Mean Looking it, I Spore it to sleep and then start using Super Fang to reduce its health. Once it's sufficiently low, use False Swipe to reduce its health down to 1HP for the greatest chances of capture. If it uses Roar, it just escaped anyway - without a Wobbuffet, you can't really help that.
Anyway, once its health is sufficiently low, start throwing Pokéballs. Your chances of success are greatest if it is at low HP, and is either asleep or frozen, although sleep is much easier to do. If it wakes up, send it straight back to sleep again; any turn it gets to attack (or Roar) makes your Pokémon suffer.
At this point, all you can do is to throw Pokéballs until it is caught. It can take anything from five balls to upwards of fifty. Just keep at it, you'll get it eventually. After a long, hard slog, you'll have it in your sweating, exhausted hands - congratulations! Now you only need to go back to a Pokémon Center, heal up, and start the whole process again for the rest of the Roamers...
To recap for tl;dr people:
* Find two routes, both with grass. Stand next to the line between the two routes.
* Check your map. If roamer is not on your route, cross line and start this step again.
* If roamer has appeared, make haste to grass, and keep encountering Pokémon until you come across the roamer.
* Use Mean Look or Wubbuffet, try and bring it down to low health and, if you can, send it to sleep.
* Throw all the Pokéballs in your possession until you run out, get Roar'd, or (hopefully) catch it.
Good luck!
This guide was brought to you by Entei, Raikou, Latios, Cresselia, Mesprit, and most importantly Code Geass, for something to do while walking backwards and forwards for half an hour.
Note: This guide is in beta forme, so any improvements/corrections/insults are welcomed - especially regarding its relevance to Gen V games. Coming sometime in the future is also a decent location for baiting Hoenn's roamers, which I have used but need to find again, as I didn't write it down.
