safari zone throw rock or bait

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The Cave of Dragonflies

Where the smallest bugs live alongside the strongest dragons

R/B/Y Safari Zone Mechanics

A staple of the Pokémon series since the originals is the Safari Zone: a special place with Pokémon that aren't found anywhere else (and some that are) where instead of getting to use your own Pokémon to weaken and capture them, you must employ more old-fashioned methods while the Pokémon may run at any moment. While they haven't been in every game, they shake up the usual routine of catching Pokémon and have had various interesting mechanics through the generations - however, the very most interesting has to be the original.

How It Works

In every Safari Zone, the player is unable to use their own Pokémon at all. Instead, when you encounter a Pokémon you have four options: throwing one of the limited number of Safari Balls you have; an aggressive action used to make the Pokémon easier to catch; an enticing action used to make it less likely to run away; or running away from the battle yourself.

In Red, Blue and Yellow, the aggressive action is called Rock , and the enticing action is called Bait . The basic idea is this: throwing a rock will double your chances of catching the Pokémon, but it will also make the Pokémon angry for 1-5 turns. Conversely, throwing bait will halve your chances of catching the Pokémon, but cause the Pokémon to be eating for 1-5 turns. While angry, a Pokémon is twice as likely to run on any given turn as if it were in its neutral state, while it is four times less likely to run while it is eating than in a neutral state.

However, there are several more interesting details and subtleties to how Safari Zone battles happen.

Throwing a Ball

Capturing in the Safari Zone follows the regular R/B/Y capture algorithm , though since neither the Pokémon's HP nor its status can be affected and the only balls available are Safari Balls (identical to Ultra Balls), a lot of things are abstracted out in the Safari Zone. Unfortunately, thanks to the game's flawed RNG , Safari Balls underperform against full-health Pokémon, making all capture chances in the Safari Zone lower than intended. The capture chance maxes out when the Pokémon has a catch rate of 150 or more, for which the chance will be about 27-30% depending on rounding errors; all other Pokémon are harder than that.

The catch rate C starts out being, as in regular captures, the intrinsic catch rate of the Pokémon species. However, unlike regular captures, your actions in the Safari Zone can directly modify C, as hinted above.

Throwing Rocks/Bait

Rocks and bait have two distinct effects. First, every time a rock is thrown, the catch rate C is doubled (though it is capped at 255, so if doubling would make the catch rate more than that, it is made 255 instead), and every time bait is thrown, C is halved and rounded down. This happens even if the Pokémon is already angry or eating, and it happens completely blindly - if the Pokémon has a catch rate of 235, and you throw a rock to give it a catch rate of 255, then throwing bait will take that catch rate down to 127, rather than "canceling out" to give it the same catch rate as before.

Since the capture chance maxes out when the catch rate is 150 as explained above, there is no point throwing rocks at any Pokémon with an intrinsic catch rate of 150 or more, or more than one rock at a Pokémon with a catch rate of 75 or more, or more than two rocks at one with a catch rate of 38 or more. As it happens that covers all Pokémon that can be found in the Safari Zone except for Chansey (catch rate 30) and Dragonair (catch rate 27 in Yellow), who would need three rocks to go over 150.

Secondly, while a battle in the Safari Zone is going on, the game also keeps track of two counters, the "angry counter" and the "eating counter", which stand for the number of angry or eating turns the Pokémon has left. They both start out at zero; however, when a rock or bait is thrown, a random number between 1 and 5 inclusive will be generated and added to the appropriate counter (i.e. the angry counter if it's a rock, or the eating counter if it's bait), while the other counter will be reset to zero regardless of its previous value. This means only one of the counters can be nonzero at any given time. Since the random number is added to whatever value the counter already has, throwing further rocks at a Pokémon that is already angry will prolong its angry state, and likewise with throwing bait at an eating Pokémon. The eating and angry counters are both capped at 255.

The Pokémon's Turn

You always get the first turn in the Safari Zone, but on the Pokémon's turn, two things happen.

First, the game will check if either of the angry and eating counters is nonzero. If so, then a message saying "Wild [Pokémon] is angry!" or "Wild [Pokémon] is eating!" as appropriate is shown and the counter is decreased by one. If the angry counter is decreased to zero this way, the Pokémon's catch rate will also be reset to its initial catch rate , regardless of how it has been modified in the battle before this point; note that this last bit does not happen when a Pokémon stops eating, nor when the angry counter is reset to zero because you threw a bait.

After this, the game will perform a calculation to determine whether the Pokémon will run away on this turn. The run chance depends only on which state the Pokémon is in - angry, eating or neutral - but not on how many times you've thrown rocks/bait in any way: a Pokémon that you've thrown five rocks at followed by one bait will be exactly as happy to stick around as one that you threw a bait at on the first turn. Note that the Pokémon's actual current state does not necessarily correspond to the state indicated by the message that was just shown, since the message indicates only that the counter in question was nonzero before it was subtracted from. This also means that if you throw a rock or bait and the random number generated is 1, you will see an angry/eating message, but the Pokémon will in fact be back in its neutral state before even the run check is performed.

The run calculation itself goes as follows:

• Make a variable X equal to the low byte (i.e. the remainder if you divide by 256) of the Pokémon's Speed ( not the base Speed of the species, but the individual's actual Speed).
• If the outcome is greater than 255 (i.e. if the Pokémon's Speed was 128 or more), the Pokémon automatically runs. Skip the rest of the procedure.
• If the Pokémon is angry, double X again (if it becomes greater than 255, make it 255 instead).
• If the Pokémon is eating, divide X by four.
• Generate a random number R between 0 and 255 inclusive.
• If R is less than X, the Pokémon runs away.

All in all, this means that so long as (the low byte of) the Pokémon's Speed is less than 128 (which it always will be in the actual game - the highest Speed any Pokémon actually found in the Safari Zone can have is 75), the chance that it will run is 2*Speed/256 if it's in a neutral state, min(255, 4*Speed)/256 if it's angry, or int(Speed/2)/256 if it's eating.

Crucially, since this is the actual individual Speed and not the base Speed of the species, lower-leveled individuals are less likely to run . While Scyther at level 25 or 28 have around or above a 50% chance of running every turn in a neutral state, for instance, Yellow's level 15 Scyther are considerably easier to catch, with only a 32% chance of running in a neutral state at the most. Thus, perhaps the best piece of strategic advice for the Safari Zone is to go for the lowest-leveled possible version of your desired Pokémon, given the lower-leveled version isn't unacceptably rare.

So, well, how should one go about trying to achieve success in the Safari Zone, other than trying to catch lower-leveled Pokémon? Four basic kinds of strategies come to mind:

• Balls only. This is the simplest way to go about the Safari Zone - just madly lob balls at everything you want to catch and pray that they don't run before you catch them.
• Rocks, then balls. Throw some sensible number of rocks, then lob balls and hope you catch it before it either runs or calms down and resets the catch rate. If you see it's not angry anymore, start again from scratch with the rocks.
• Bait, then balls. Throw some bait to put the Pokémon in the eating state and make it stick around, then throw balls and hope the reduced catch rate doesn't come back to bite you. Unlike with rocks, where once the Pokémon stops being angry you're back at square one, it's not quite as obvious here that you should throw more bait once the Pokémon stops eating - each bait you throw lowers the catch rate more, after all.
• Rocks to increase catch rate, then bait to get it to stay, then balls. Throw a rock or two (or three) and then immediately throw bait. Provided your first rock doesn't generate one as the number of angry turns (in which case the Pokémon will calm down immediately and reset the catch rate), you'll manage to increase the Pokémon's catch rate before the bait gets thrown, meaning you end up with a catch rate of the same, double or quadruple the original (depending on the number of rocks), but a 4x reduced chance of running and assurance that the catch rate won't reset when it returns to the neutral state.

There are other possible strategies, but they appear obviously flawed - if you were to throw bait and then a rock, for instance, you'd end up with a normal catch rate but a higher running chance after wasting two turns, which can't possibly be helpful. These are the main ones that at a glance appear to hold some kind of promise.

You may think, as I did when I was initially working this out, that the fourth strategy has the most potential. However, as it turns out, the R/B/Y Safari Zone is broken: the balls-only strategy nearly always wins by a considerable margin, at least in terms of your overall chance of catching the Pokémon per encounter. Wasting your time on bait and rocks is only worth it in a couple of very exceptional cases.

Wait, What?

Good question. If you don't care about getting an intuitive grasp on why this is true, feel free to skip to the Safari Zone calculator.

Here's the thing. The entire Safari Zone experience basically simplifies to a game where you and the Pokémon alternate turns, with each of you having a given chance of "winning" on each of your turns (you win if you catch the Pokémon, while the Pokémon wins if it runs). When you throw bait or a rock, however, you do that instead of throwing a ball on that turn, while the Pokémon will continue to have a chance of running on every single one of its turns; essentially, you are forgoing one of your turns (attempts to "win") in exchange for a later advantage.

What is that later advantage, then, and is it worth losing that turn? Well, in the case of a rock, you double your chances of winning (catching the Pokémon) for up to four subsequent turns - but you also double the Pokémon's chances of winning (running away), and because you used up your turn throwing the rock, it's the Pokémon that has the next move.

You can hopefully see how that's not really a recipe for success. However, it's not quite as bleak as it appears, thanks to the one place where the simplification breaks down: you have a limited number of Safari Balls. A rock, by doubling both yours and the Pokémon's chances of winning each turn, will shorten the average duration of the battle. Thus, if you have sufficiently few balls and the Pokémon has a sufficiently low catch rate and Speed, to the point that in an average battle against it you'd run out of balls before either catching it or it running, throwing a rock and shortening the battle so your balls will last can actually be worth it, even at the aforementioned cost. For instance, if you only have one Safari Ball left, then you can either throw that one ball with a regular catch rate or throw some rocks first, which will make your single ball much more likely to be effective once you do throw it; you'll only get one attempt to catch it either way. The risks will still outweigh the benefits if the Pokémon is pretty speedy, since then it will be likely to run before you can actually throw the ball at all, but for a sufficiently slow target (for a single Safari Ball, the highest Speed where a rock will be worth it is 25 or so), rocks can be a good idea when you don't have a lot of Safari Balls left.

Throwing multiple rocks can also help, at least in theory, since more rocks will continue to double your chances of catching the Pokémon without raising the running chance further. Primarily, in many of those situations where a lack of Safari Balls means one rock is a good idea, two (or possibly three) rocks improve your chances even further, though the range of situations where this works is even narrower than for one rock. Technically multiple rocks can also help in general for Pokémon with very low Speeds and low catch rates - however, that's low Speeds as in single digits, and no Pokémon that fit the bill are actually found in the Safari Zone, making that point kind of moot. Otherwise, if you have plenty of balls to spare, the free angry turns they usually get to run away before you even start trying to catch them just result in a disadvantage you can't make up for.

What about bait? Bait is immediately somewhat more promising than rocks, since it halves your chance of "winning" but quarters the Pokémon's. However, bait also differs from rocks in that the catch rate doesn't go back to normal after the Pokémon stops eating, and just like rocks shorten the duration of the battle, bait prolongs the battle - it makes both parties less likely to win on subsequent turns. And the longer the battle goes on, the more the up-to-four turns (remember, the counter is decreased before the run check) that the Pokémon is actually less likely to run diminish in significance compared to all the turns after the Pokémon stops eating, when it will still have a lowered catch rate but a regular chance of running. That's besides the fact that again you must forgo a turn to throw the bait in the first place. In fact, as it turns out this makes bait wholly useless: there is not even in theory a Speed/catch rate combination for which bait will do you any good.

Where does this leave that especially promising-looking "rocks, then bait" strategy? Ultimately, it's stuck in the same rut rocks are: it's normally only useful for Pokémon with such ludicrously low Speed that they don't actually exist in the Safari Zone, and unfortunately, while rocks at least have a niche when you're running low on balls, you're always going to be better off just throwing however many rocks you're going to throw and then throwing your ball than throwing the rocks and then wasting your time on bait if you only have a couple of balls left. This strategy requires wasting several turns without throwing any balls, during some of which the Pokémon will have an increased chance of running, and to make matters worse, if the number of angry turns generated is one, you're going to lose even the rock's advantage and end up with the bait's lowered catch rate after all that preparation. It just kills it.

So, again, in nearly every case the best strategy is to just throw balls and hope you get lucky. That is, however, assuming that what you want to maximize is your chance of success per encounter: since rocks shorten the battle and make for fewer Safari Balls required, rocks may actually save you time and money.

The Safari Zone calculator below includes a variety of strategies, despite their mostly limited usefulness; play around with it if you think you might go with a different one.

Safari Zone Calculator

Use this tool to calculate your chances of capturing a given Pokémon.

As it is, it only includes Pokémon that are actually found in the Safari Zone in either Red, Blue, Yellow, or the Japanese-exclusive Blue version. If there is demand for adding other Pokémon just for the hell of it, I can do that too, but in the meantime, I feel this makes more sense.

In addition to your chances of capturing the Pokémon with any or all of the provided strategies, the calculator will also provide you with the basic capture rate and run chance per turn. When you select a Pokémon and game, additionally, it will give you the locations, levels and rarities at which the Pokémon is found in the Safari Zone in that game, so that you can perhaps attempt to find your Pokémon at a lower level or in an area where it's more common.

The base percentages the calculator gives may not match exactly up with those given by my R/B/Y catch rate calculator , since this calculator makes the simplifying assumption that the Pokémon's HP and Speed are equal to the average HP/Speed a wild Pokémon of the given species/level would have, while the catch rate calculator does the entire calculation for each possible HP IV and takes the average of the actual outcomes. I chose not to do the more accurate calculation here because this calculation is both already relatively slow and involves two different stats - trying every possibility would mean doing that whole relatively slow calculation up to 256 times, which just seems like way more trouble than it's worth.

Pokémon: Chansey Cubone Doduo Dragonair Dratini Exeggcute Goldeen Kangaskhan Krabby Lickitung Magikarp Marowak Nidoran (f) Nidoran (m) Nidorina Nidorino Paras Parasect Pinsir Poliwag Psyduck Rhyhorn Scyther Slowpoke Tangela Tauros Venomoth Venonat

Game: Red Blue/JP Green JP Blue Yellow

Safari Balls remaining:

Strategy: Show all Balls only One rock Two rocks Three rocks Bait repeatedly One bait Two bait Three bait Rock, then bait Two rocks, then bait Three rocks, then bait

Page last modified August 9 2021 at 02:53 UTC

Kanto Safari Zone

The Kanto Safari Zone (Japanese: サファリゾーン Safari Zone ) is a special Pokémon preserve in Kanto that Trainers can enter to catch wild Pokémon. It is owned by Baoba .

For $ 500, the player can play the Safari Game (Japanese: サファリゲーム Safari Game ) and receive 30 Safari Balls . Trainers are limited to 500 R B Y /600 FR LG steps in the Safari Zone before the Game is over. A Safari Zone Exploration Campaign is also taking place, where the goal is for Trainers to find the Secret House (Japanese: トレジャーハウス Treasure House ), located in the deepest area, Area 3. The prize for finding the house is HM03 ( Surf ).

In the Safari Zone, when a wild Pokémon appears, Trainers cannot send out Pokémon to battle it. Instead, Trainers must face Pokémon only with simple tools, and catching a Pokémon becomes much more reliant on luck, as Pokémon are able to run away from the Trainer at any time. Trainers may throw Bait to make a Pokémon less likely to run, but this also makes it harder to catch. Conversely, throwing Rocks will make a Pokémon easier to catch but more likely to run.

In Generation II , the Safari Zone has closed down while Baoba takes a vacation. In the contemporaneous Generation IV games, he has opened another one in Johto and Kanto's Pal Park is located here. In Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! , GO Park is located here.

• 2.1 Generation I
• 2.2 Generation III
• 2.3 Bait Strat
• 3 Closing notices
• 5.1.1 Center Area
• 5.1.2 Area 1
• 5.1.3 Area 2
• 5.1.4 Area 3
• 5.2.1 Center Area
• 5.2.2 Area 1
• 5.2.3 Area 2
• 5.2.4 Area 3
• 7.1 Pokémon Pinball
• 8.1.1 Pokémon
• 8.2.1 Pokémon
• 9.1.1 Pokémon
• 9.2.1 Pokémon
• 9.3.1 Pokémon
• 11 In other languages

The Safari Zone is divided into four areas:

• The Center Area: where the player enters the Safari Zone
• Area 1: east from the Center Area
• Area 2: north from the Center Area
• Area 3: west from the Center Area

In the Generation I games, "Center Area" is actually used to refer to both the entrance area that acts as a hub to all the other areas, and the area east from this hub.

Safari Game

As with other Safari Games, Pokémon are made easier or harder to capture by modifying the Pokémon's catch rate . Pokémon can be in any of three states—angry, eating or neutral—with the angry state making them more likely to run but the eating state making them less likely to.

Generation I

At the start of an encounter, two counters—an "angry counter" and an "eating counter"—are set to 0. Whenever Bait is thrown, the angry counter is reset while the eating counter increases by a random value between 1 and 5 (but to no more than 255). The opposite occurs if a Rock is thrown: the eating counter is reset and the angry counter increases on the same basis. The catch rate is doubled (to no more than 255) whenever a Rock is thrown, but halved (rounded down) whenever Bait is thrown.

At the end of each turn, if either the angry or eating counter is nonzero, it is decreased by 1; if the angry counter is decreased to 0, the modified catch rate resets to the Pokémon's initial catch rate. A random value between 0 and 255 inclusive is generated, and if this is less than half of the Pokémon's Speed rounded down (if the Pokémon is eating), double the Speed (if the Pokémon is in a neutral state), or four times the Speed (if the Pokémon is angry), the Pokémon escapes. A Pokémon will also always escape if its Speed is 128 or more, even if it is eating.

Generation III

The Safari Game mechanics were overhauled to more closely resemble the one in the Hoenn Safari Zone . Like it, there is an additional "catch factor" that begins at 100/1275 of the Pokémon's catch rate (rounded down). Each species of Pokémon that appears in the Safari Zone also has its own "escape rate", unlike in the Hoenn Safari Zone , which is never modified. Bait cannot reduce the "catch factor" of a Pokémon below 3 and rocks cannot increase it above 20. Because of this, Chansey becomes easier to catch after being baited as its catch factor increases from 2 to 3, Pokémon with a base catch rate of 45 will not become harder to catch after bait has been thrown as their catch factor remains at 3, and Magikarp cannot become any easier to catch by throwing rocks as its catch factor is already 20.

Like Generation I, a Pokémon will be angry or eating whenever Bait or Rocks are thrown. If Bait is thrown, it will be "eating" for 1-5 turns, during which the catch factor is halved. If Rocks are thrown, it will be "angry" for 1-5 turns, during which the catch factor is doubled. Being "angry" or "eating" is mutually exclusive, though modifications to the catch factors will stack. Whenever a Safari Ball is thrown, the catch factor is converted back to a catch rate by multiplying by 1275/100 and rounding down. The amount of bait or anger a Pokémon has can stack if multiple rocks or bait are thrown. The amount cannot surpass 5 turns worth of either.

At the beginning of each turn a flee check will be completed. A random number from 0 to 99 is generated, and is compared to 5 times its "modified escape factor" if the random value is less, the Pokémon will escape at the end of the turn unless it is captured. During a flee check turn the game will determine a Pokémon's "modified escape factor" 1275/100 of the escape rate (rounded down), which is doubled if the Pokémon is "angry" or quartered (rounded down) if the Pokémon is "eating". This value cannot be reduced below 1 which is equal to a 5% chance to flee. When a Pokémon is first encountered, its flee rate cannot be lower than 2.

A restriction that causes a Pokémon's "Catch Factor" to be a minimum of 3 after bait has been thrown, causes Chansey 's catch rate to be increased from 25 (4.9% per ball) to 38 (8.09% per ball) after throwing bait. This means that throwing bait makes Chansey both easier to catch and less likely to flee. Similarly the Pokémon Kangaskhan , Scyther , Pinsir , Tauros , Dragonair , and Dratini all have catch rates that are unaffected by the use of bait. Due to this oddity players are able to increase their chances of successfully catching some Pokémon through the use of what has been called the "Bait Strat". By throwing two bait and then a sequence switching between a couple balls and then more bait players can keep a Pokémon's flee rate low by maximizing their chances that they will continue eating. Unfortunately, a Pokémon's flee check is preformed at the beginning of the turn, so bait will only come into effect the turn after it has been thrown. This leaves an inherent risk of a Pokémon fleeing before any balls have been thrown. Trainers brave enough to throw bait can find themselves with a 19.08% chance to catch Chansey per encounter as opposed to just 10.28% with balls alone.

Closing notices

In Generation II , the sign outside the Safari Zone contains a notice about it being closed in that reads:

The WARDEN is traveling abroad. Therefore, the SAFARI ZONE is closed.

In HeartGold and SoulSilver , the sign informs that since the Safari Zone is closed, the facility houses Pal Park instead.

There's a notice here... The Safari Zone is closed. Instead, we have Pal Park.

Center Area

In the spin-off games, pokémon pinball.

In Pokémon Pinball , the Safari Zone appears on the Red and Blue tables; catchable Pokémon include Nidoran♀ , Nidoran♂ , Paras , Doduo , Grimer , Rhyhorn , Chansey , Scyther , Pinsir , and Tauros .

In the anime

Main series.

The Safari Zone only appeared in the banned episode EP035 . Due to this episode's international ban outside of Asia, the Safari Zone has never appeared in the English dub , although it was mentioned in the preceding episodes The Flame Pokémon-Athon! and The Kangaskhan Kid .

In the anime, the Safari Zone is run by a gun-toting warden, Kaiser . Like in the games, Trainers are restricted to only thirty Safari Balls per challenge. It is explained that this is the result of an incident decades ago where a rumor of the extremely rare Pokémon Dratini being spotted in the Safari Zone caused countless Trainers to recklessly catch excessive amounts of Pokémon in the area and completely wreck it in the process.

Upon entering the Safari Zone, Ash and his friends encountered Team Rocket , who challenged them to a contest to see who could catch the most Pokémon. However, while Ash was busy catching Pokémon, Team Rocket forced Kaiser to reveal Dratini's location. Ash and his friends managed to stop Team Rocket's plan to detonate a bomb in Dratini's home lagoon and discovered that the Dratini which Kaiser had met decades earlier had evolved into Dragonair and now had its own child Dratini. Before leaving the Safari Zone, Ash sent the Pokémon he had caught, namely a herd of Tauros and nothing else, to Professor Oak's Laboratory .

The Safari Zone is also seen in an early trailer for the second movie , where it is experiencing a harsh blizzard thanks to the unstable weather patterns caused by the fighting between the legendary birds . The scene, like most scenes from initial Pokémon movie trailers, is never actually used in the movie.

Pokémon Origins

The Kanto Safari Zone appeared in File 4: Charizard , when Red was seen confronting Chansey in there. Initially, he had trouble choosing between throwing a rock or a bait, almost causing the Chansey to run away, but eventually, he managed to catch it and add its data to his Pokédex .

In the manga

Pokémon adventures.

The Safari Zone appeared in Long Live the Nidoking! and A Hollow Victreebel , where Red visited it. Like all visitors, Red was forced to leave his Pokémon and Poké Balls to the entrance before starting his tour. Guided by two robotic Pidgey called Pidgebots , Red started a ride on a raft in a river running through the Safari Zone. When he noticed two Nidoking fighting over the love of a Nidoqueen , Red secretly pulled out a Poké Ball he had smuggled in and tried to catch one of the Nidoking with it. However, the ball missed the Nidoking and caught Nidoqueen instead. Enraged by this, the two Nidoking attacked Red's raft, destroying it and one of the Pidgebots.

While on the run, Red ended up getting caught by a group of Victreebel , who intended to eat him as a part of their nightly evolution ritual. However, thanks to his Poké Flute and a Poké Doll , Red managed to escape. Coming across one of the Nidoking from before again, Red caught one of the Victreebel and used it to weaken Nidoking enough for capture. The next morning, when Red was found by the Safari Zone officials, he was revealed to have caught a huge herd of Pokémon.

Pokémon Pocket Monsters

Red and his Pokémon visited the Safari Zone in Rampage At The Safari Zone?! . Like many other places they visit, it ended up getting wrecked by Clefairy .

Pokémon Zensho

The Safari Zone appeared in Fuchsia City , where Satoshi entered it. After saving a Ditto from a Tauros , Satoshi met Shigeru , who showed off all the Pokémon he had managed to catch at the Safari Zone. Soon after, Satoshi came across a Fisherman , who gave him a fishing rod. To the Fisherman's astonishment, Satoshi managed to reel in a rare Dratini , and asked for him to trade it for him. At first, Satoshi was reluctant, but when he noticed the Safari Zone Warden 's missing dentures inside one of the Fisherman's Poké Balls , he accepted the offer.

On his way to return the dentures, Satoshi was ambushed and challenged to a battle by Gym Leader Koga . Satoshi's Ditto transformed into a duplicate of Koga, resulting in his Weezing getting confused and self-destructing , earning Satoshi the Soul Badge .

• The background music is Evolution .
• They are also the only areas where it is not possible to remove tall grass by using Cut . However, tall grass can be removed normally from these areas in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen .
• In the Generation II games, there is some data for a beta Safari Zone in Fuchsia City , but it was ultimately unused.
• Another reference to the aforementioned episode in Yellow may be the fact that Dragonair , which also appeared in EP035, is available in the Yellow Version, but not in the Red and Blue Versions.
• In Generation I , a scientist in a house in the top-right corner of Area 2 states, " You can keep any item you find on the ground here. But, you'll run out of time if you try for all of them at once! ". However, so long as the player can use HM03 ( Surf ) as soon as they pick it up, it is actually possible to collect all possible items in the Safari Zone in one visit.
• Although bait makes Pokémon harder to catch, an NPC in Area 4 says it makes them easier to catch.
• In the Western Generation I games, though the player receives 30 Safari Balls, it is only possible to catch 25 Pokémon: 5 to fill the party and 20 to fill a Box . In the Japanese games, however, the Box capacity is 30 Pokémon.
• As this doesn't happen in Red and Blue, the player will be unable to get HM03 (Surf) nor the Gold Teeth if they run out of money.

In other languages

• Candidates for moving
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• Kanto locations
• Red, Blue and Yellow locations
• FireRed and LeafGreen locations
• Pokémon Pinball locations

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Safari Zone

The Safari Zone is home to some rare Pokémon, as well as a number of interesting items.

In case you're confused about how to catch Pokémon in the Safari Zone, here are the basic rules:

• You can take 500 steps before you're automatically recalled to the entrance.
• You can only use the 30 Safari Balls provided by the park.
• You cannot attack or use items or status altering moves.
• You can throw stones to make the Pokémon you are trying to catch angry. This will make it more likely that you will catch the Pokémon, but it will also make the Pokémon more likely to run away. You should throw multiple stones to increase your chances.
• You can toss out bait to make the Pokémon stay around longer. On the downside, this makes them harder to catch.
• Catching some of the rare Pokémon, like Chansey can be tough. It's not unusual to throw all 30 Safari Balls without catching a Pokémon, so don't get discouraged. Just save your game before you enter the Safari Zone. If you don't catch anything good, just restart.

Find the Warden's Teeth

From the entrance, head north and east to find the exit to Area 1. Head east until you come to a grassy area, then go up the steps to the north. Go west, then down the steps and continue on north where you will see another short stairway. Go up the stairs, go east, and then down the next stairway you see. The exit to Area 2 is to the west, so go north until you can turn left and continue on west until you find the exit.

Now that you're in Area 2, go west until you're in the tall grass, then continue on north and go up the steps (not the ones by the sign), then take the next flight of stairs down again. Go west until you bump into a pond, then continue on north. Go east until you find yourself in tall grass again, then go north. When you can't go any further, turn to the left and continue on west (pick up the Protein power-up on the way). You'll come to another patch of tall grass. You're almost there. Just go all the way to the south and exit this map to go to Area 3. There, finally -- a few squares to the south -- you will find the Gold Teeth.

Get HM 03 (Surf) and TM 32 (Double Team)

Since you're already here, why not get the most useful HM at the same time as the teeth? Just go to the west from where you entered into Area 3 and you'll see a small hut (you will also see TM32 lying outside on the ground, so grab it). Inside the hut, you will receive Surf . Teach this to your Pokémon to get a powerful Water attack that almost always hits its target -- and the ability to cross rivers, ponds, lakes and even oceans. To go for a swim anywhere, just walk up to a shore and select the Pokémon that knows Surf in the Pokémon menu. Select Surf and you're on your way.

Get HM04 (Strength) and Rare Candy

With the Gold Teeth in hand, go back to the Warden's house in Fuchsia City (it's the house in the southeast, below the pond). As a reward for bringing back his teeth, he will give you HM04 (Strength). This power lets your Pokémon push around large boulders (you have to manually activate the Strength power every time you enter a new area). Use Strength in the Warden's house and push the boulder to the right. You can now grab the Rare Candy .

More in the Safari Zone

We've already covered how you can find the Gold Teeth, HM03 and TM32 above, but there is certainly some more stuff to be found here:

• Nugget: In the entrance area. You need Surf.
• Leaf Stone: Area 1
• Max Potion: Area 1
• Quick Claw: Area 1
• TM11 (Sunny Day): Area 1
• Full Restore: Area 1
• TM47 (Steel Wing): Area 2
• Protein: Area 2
• Gold Teeth: Area 3
• TM32 (Double Team): Area 3
• Max Revive: Area 3
• Max Potion: Area 3

Up Next: Fuschia City Gym

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• General Discussion

Proof that the optimal Safari Zone strategy is to throw balls every turn

By Atricos September 11, 2021 in General Discussion

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• Lacei , xkaru , PinkWings and 20 others

Link to comment

For a full version, check this Imgur album:  https://imgur.com/a/NXfd3Ay

Now I have a paper to link to people when they ask what they should do in the safari.

• Atricos , JohntheJester , FighterChamp and 2 others

I already found 2 typos, but disregarding those, I think it's understandable.

I just wanna catch some Pokemon man ...

• PinkWings , JohntheJester , FRACASADITO and 4 others

Corrected 2 typos: - Section 1.1: "probabiliy" -> "probability" - Section 1.2: "guarantee that if the ..." -> "guarantee that the ..."

1 minute ago, HEARTEATERS said: wrong

Please elaborate, which part have I made mistake(s) in?

thx bro i always needed this kind of proof 

Interesting read. The downfall is that this is that it goes so far over the heads of the community who can't even figure out a basic percentage.

3 minutes ago, EssDeeCee said: Interesting read. The downfall is that this is that it goes so far over the heads of the community who can't even figure out a basic percentage.

While definitely true, there isn't a much simpler method of proving this. I included the "simple explanation" in Section 2.1, so maybe if someone's not too well versed in probability theory, they can understand that non-rigorous reasoning.

I hope you accounted for dn when doing these calculations

CaptnBaklava

I'm a simple man, I see mons I throw balls. 

Good to see that my strategy is proofed now. 

• Quint , Jgaw and Atricos

Or just like...don't go there.

It makes me wonder why these features are even implemented in the game. If they're not actually serving a purpose, why have they been here since Generation 1? Did the formulas change over the years, or is it a PokeMMO thing? Please elaborate on your data points and where it was gathered from.

Also, at the start, you assume the player has infinite Pokeballs. What if the player has exactly 1 Safari Ball left? What should they do then, if they've only got the 1 shot? 

15 minutes ago, Kiralexis said: It makes me wonder why these features are even implemented in the game. If they're not actually serving a purpose, why have they been here since Generation 1? Did the formulas change over the years, or is it a PokeMMO thing? Please elaborate on your data points and where it was gathered from.   Also, at the start, you assume the player has infinite Pokeballs. What if the player has exactly 1 Safari Ball left? What should they do then, if they've only got the 1 shot? 

- The Safari Zone did have a lot of changes over the generations, check the various links on this side:  https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Safari_Zone  As far as I know, the current mechanics that are in PokeMMO are a simplified version of the Generation 4 mechanics.

- It is a valid critique of my method that I ingored the fact that the player could run out of balls. It could definitely happen that the player is very low on balls, is unlikely to catch the Pokémon because of this, so throwing a Rock would be beneficial to raise the catch rate. However that analysis is suddenly way-WAY more complicated, as not only do we need to modify the infinite graph to one that has a given length (the number of balls the player has remaning), suddenly mixed strategies become viable - after using some Safari Balls that don't catch, maybe it's better to throw a Rock so that the catch rate increases. If I have time, I will try to do a full analysis on that, but that would be like 3-4 times longer.

- As for the exact question on "What to do if the player has exactly 1 Safari Ball left", I believe the answer depends on the catch rate and flee rate, and I would need to calculate that.

2 hours ago, Juaske said: I hope you accounted for dn when doing these calculations

Mfw people put more effort in proving catch rates than I did in my bachelor thesis

• Imperial , TipsyTurvy , CrzPapel and 6 others

1 hour ago, Paul said: dn?

The DeciNewton

8 minutes ago, Juaske said: The DeciNewton

not the answer I was hoping for..

• Obvi and JohntheJester

2 hours ago, Quakkz said: Mfw people put more effort in proving catch rates than I did in my bachelor thesis

This was probably the guy's dissertation project for his maths degree at uni - either way I'm impressed

Hey, I really appreciate all of the work you did on this! Having said that, it's possible that the assumptions we've made are naive in terms of the mechanics of the balls and baits. A fairly detailed document has been produced on the matter, and since the game uses Safari Zone mechanics from FireRed (as far as I know), it's likely that it will be applicable to our use case: https://www.docdroid.net/Tx5NbeU/safari-zone-research-pdf

Let me know your thoughts on this and the optimum play patterns they describe!

• JohntheJester

5 hours ago, DamianTe said: Hey, I really appreciate all of the work you did on this! Having said that, it's possible that the assumptions we've made are naive in terms of the mechanics of the balls and baits. A fairly detailed document has been produced on the matter, and since the game uses Safari Zone mechanics from FireRed (as far as I know), it's likely that it will be applicable to our use case: https://www.docdroid.net/Tx5NbeU/safari-zone-research-pdf   Let me know your thoughts on this and the optimum play patterns they describe!

That study looks fascinating! I've only skimmed though it so far, I'll read it in detail soon.

I was wondering, do we actually have an official confirmation that the PokeMMO Safari mechanics work with the Kanto method?

Since then my calculations wouldn't be applicible for the game. (Though they're still true if we assume what's described in Section 1.2.)

Edit: It seems that the study acknowledges that it's outdated, since it says "The Safari Game mechanics were overhauled to more closely resemble the one in the Hoenn Safari Zone." Though I'm still not sure if that's how PokeMMO works.

I might be saying something stupid here and probably completely wrong, but isn't it true that the part of eating the bait has nothing to do with the percentages? And the pokemon won't flee while eating it? And if so, did you factored those extra poke balls you get to throw meanwhile? 

Again, this mechanic is probably only in my head and not true at all xD

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Smart with numbers, me believe smart.

FighterChamp

You explained maths better than college professors 

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Kanto Safari Zone, how do you determine when to throw the Safari Ball?

• Thread starter Amewsment
• Start date Jul 24, 2008

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Mewsic to your ears!

• Jul 24, 2008

Well-Known Member

Tossing and praying is usually the most practical way of getting the buggers. Prepare to be frustrated by Tauros. Oh, and I advise just ignoring Dragonair completely. It's nearly impossible to find, let alone catch. Evolving Dratini is a much better bet.  

Pokémon Capture Expert

Rocks make Pokémon more likely to flee, and easier to capture. Bait does the inverse. Hope that helps.  

• Thread starter

Paperfairy said: Rocks make Pokémon more likely to flee, and easier to capture. Bait does the inverse. Click to expand...

YemaGrl1988

I love me some venonat.

Sometimes it's easier to throw rocks for some pokemon to catch them, other times they flee. I've tried giving bait to Tauros before but it fled. Then I threw a rock at it another time and it stuck around (but I still didn't catch it -_-) Sometimes you can throw a rock, then throw bait or vice versa. That's what I used to catch a Pinsir (Leaf Green but equivalent to Scyther)  

• Jul 26, 2008

Uhm, hooray then?  

FuneralSound

• Jul 30, 2008

i normally throw a rock then feed it to make it feel better and keep continuing like that till i think i can get it  

• Jul 31, 2008

is the safari zone in crystal?  

...No.  

If you are looking for patterns, I believe all Pokemon possess an established flee rate, and Rocks/Bait simply temporarily modify the catch rate and flee rate values. If one could acquire a list of all flee rates, then a strategy could be potentially developed for the Safari Zone.  

• Aug 8, 2008

This may or not be helpfull but I never used a rock I always did Bait Bait Pokeball Pokeball then repeat untill they where caught and nothing ever took me more than 2 tries altough I only caught a Kangashkahn Rhyhorn and Nidorino as they where all I was going for. I was under the impression rocks where to get them to go away if you didnt want them.  

dishonourable gentleman

I don't no if this will help you fishing for Dargonair but go to the very last pool of water in the safari zone and whip out your super rod but instead of moving around in the water tap the D-pad and then cast your rod. That way you dont use up any steps. But as some other dude said its easier to level up dratini.  

• Aug 12, 2008

.Messed up. said: I don't no if this will help you fishing for Dargonair but go to the very last pool of water in the safari zone and whip out your super rod but instead of moving around in the water tap the D-pad and then cast your rod. That way you dont use up any steps. But as some other dude said its easier to level up dratini. Click to expand...

• I understand this is an old thread, but want to reply anyway

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GuideScroll

The Internet’s Best Game Guides

PokeMMO Safari Zone Guide

PokeMMO Safari Zone Guide  by Cubes

TL;DR –  For rare pokemon in the Safari Zone, the best strategy is to use 1 Bait and then throw a lot of balls. If the Pokemon stops eating and is watching carefully, throw 1 more bait then keep throwing balls. If you have 1-3 balls left, you should just throw balls without bait.

Best place to catch: Chansey- Surf across water in the entrance, go to north area. Scyther/Pinsir- Entrance Kangaskhan- Go right from entrance Tauros- Surf across water in the entrance, go to west area. Dratini/Dragonair (The catch rate is the same)- Super Rod at any body of water

Using Repels –  Using a level 26 pokemon with repels will not let you encounter Chansey per se, but it will let you avoid a bunch of pokemon in-between. It’s a good time saver, if you don’t want to spend the time running away from pokemon, but you won’t catch Chansey any faster step-wise. (Credits to heated, reazh, and darkside)

Edit: added what to do in case Pokemon stops eating; added best places to catch pokemon; added what to do in case of 1-3 balls left; added repels.

Ok, so I was going through safari zone trying to catch rare Pokemon, wondering “What’s the best strategy?”. Googling gave me no answers, so I dug a little deeper. All formulas can be sourced to Bulbapedia.

A little background: every pokemon has it’s own catch rate, which determines how easy or hard it is to catch. Legendaries are hard, while Pidgey is a breeze. For every pokemon, you determine a modified catch rate (using catch rate, health, status, etc), and with this you can determine the probability of catching said pokemon. The key to remember- the higher the catch rate, the higher the probability of catching the pokemon.

Normally, if the Safari Zone was just a regular wild zone, the following would apply: all pokemon are at full health, with no status conditions.For a pokemon at full health, no status, the “modified catch rate” is 1/3(catch rate).

Let’s take for example, Chansey, of course. Chansey has a catch rate of 30. Normally, the modified catch rate is 1/3(30)x1.5 = 15. (Why x1.5? This factors in the safari ball properly, which is x1.5 the Pokeball.)

But, the safari zone is tricky, and adds in more factors! The catch rate is multiplied by 100/1275, and then rounded down, to get a “safari-catch factor”. Here is where the safari zone screws you! Doing the math for Chansey,the rounding down gives you a safari-catch factor of just 2. Normally, when you throw the ball, it multiplies back by 1275/100, then rounds down, giving you a catch rate of just 25. Fuck that noise! Screw you safari zone.

Plugging in this new catch rate into our formula, we get 1/3(25)x1.5 = 12.5. But we have to round down (again), so it’s actually 12.

Now we have a safari-modified catch rate for Chansey, 12. Using Bulbapedia’s formula, we have a probability of approximately 4.7% of catching Chansey per ball thrown.

“But Cubes,” you ask, “what about bait and rocks? How do those affect things?”

Very interestingly, in fact. What happens is that rocks double the safari-zone factor and bait halves it. Taking Chansey as an example for all the rare pokemon, with bait, her safari-catch factor is a measly 1, and we get a catch rate of just 12, and a modified catch rate of just 6. Your odds of catching Chansey are 2.4% per ball thrown.

As for rocks, a sneaky cool thing happens for Chansey. The safari-catch factor doubles, becoming 4, and then when you multiply by 1275/100, we get a catch rate of 51, and a modified catch rate of 25.

Did you see what happened? It’s slightly more than double the regular modified catch rate, and this affects things. The odds of catching Chansey becomes 9.8% per ball thrown with the rock effect.

Now you must be thinking, rocks all the way! But, we’ve forgotten about escapes, and this is where the rock fails us. (Now unfortunately, I couldn’t find escape rates for the pokemon, but it shouldn’t affect the outcome.) When angry, a pokemon is twice as likely to escape. But when busy eating, the pokemon is 1/4 less likely to escape, a big difference.

So, you see that you get 4 bait balls every time you throw 1 rock ball, and when you add up the percentages, you get 9.8% rock vs. 9.6% bait, and . But we also have to take into account the first turn. The pokemon is angry/eating after the first turn, and so you are ~7-8 times as likely to be able to throw your first bait ball before even throwing your first rock ball, and this tilts the favor in the bait’s favor.

How the escape factor works is that the escape rate(which is an integer) is multiplied by 5, and then affected by rock/bait to get a final rate. Then a random number between 0-99 is generated. If this number is lower than the final rate, the pokemon escape. For a rare pokemon, the rate is either 8 or 9 (I’m not sure), but let’s say 9. Then the normal final rate is 45, and there’s a 55% chance your pokemon will stay per turn. While angry, the rate becomes 90, and you only have a 10% chance of the Pokemon staying. While eating, the rate becomes 11 (rounded down), and you have an 89% chance of the pokemon staying per turn.

Factoring this in, you get- an 11% chance to be able to throw rock and 1 ball consecutively- 1.15% chance of capture; a 55% chance to be able to throw 2 regular balls consecutively- 7.29% chance of capture; a 50% chance to be able to throw bait and 3 balls, followed by a bait and 2 more balls consecutively- 8.26% chance of capture.

So as you can see, rock is a TERRIBLE strategy, and bait better than just throwing balls. I can explain the math I did behind this if anyone wants me to.

How many baits should you use? Just 1. When using multiple baits, the effect on the safari-capture factor stacks, but the escape factor does not. In short, each additional bait halves your catch chance while doing nothing to the escape chance.

Another factor in bait’s favor- the Safari Zone restrictions. You only get 30 balls and 500 steps. But Chansey (and other rare Pokemon) are so rare that your steps will run out before your balls do. So a strategy that maximizes the amount of balls thrown per catch attempt is the most efficient use of your hard-earned 500 Pokedollars. This doesn’t apply when catching dratini/dragonair though, since you can stay still the whole time.

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How to Catch Pokémon in Safari Zone

Last Updated: May 21, 2023 References

This article was reviewed by Ishrak . Ishrak is a Gaming & Video Expert specializing in sharing Pokémon and Minecraft videos. With over seven years of gaming and streaming experience, Ishrak has a follower base of over 30,000 YouTube subscribers and over 8 million views. He is also a Pokémon ROM-Hacker and some of his most popular videos highlight tips and advice for people learning how to play Pokémon games. This article has been viewed 110,568 times.

In the Pokémon series of games, Safari Zones are special unique areas in each game where rare Pokémon that don't appear anywhere else in the game can be caught. Safari Zones always operate with different rules than the rest of the game world - instead of battling Pokémon in the wild like you normally would, you'll need to carefully use baits and deterrents to get Pokémon to let down their guards so you can catch them. This can be quite challenging, so knowing the ins and outs of Safari Zone mechanics in each game is vital for success.

Navigating the Safari Zone

Fighting and capturing pokémon.

• Note that the "run away" option functions as normal, so we won't be discussing it.

• However, using bait will also make the Pokémon more difficult to catch in a safari ball. Thus, striking a balance here can be difficult — the longer you get the Pokémon to stick around for, the harder it will be to actually capture it.

• However, there's an important downside: using rocks will also make the Pokémon more likely to run away. In fact, after taking more than a few rocks, a Pokémon is virtually guaranteed to run away — some will exit the battle sooner. Thus, once again, using rocks means striking a delicate balance as you try to capture your Pokémon.

• Note that you only have a limited supply of safari balls (depending on the game, usually 30), so save them for Pokémon you want to catch. It's generally the best use of your time to use your safari balls for Pokémon that are only found in the safari zone.

• Note that safari balls are weak compared to the pokéballs you can use in the rest of the game. In addition to this, especially rare Safari Zone Pokémon are extra-difficult to catch. [2] X Research source This can lead to some very frustrating situations — for instance, it can easily take 20 or more tries to catch an exceptionally rare Pokémon like Clefairy.

General Tips

• Bulbapedia, an online user-supported Pokémon encyclopedia, has extensive information about each game's Safari Zone, including maps and guides covering where to look for the Pokémon in each zone. See the Bulbapedia Safari Zone article to get started. [3] X Research source
• Note that there is no step limit in the Safari Zone in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. [4] X Research source

• Across all of the games in the series, the entrance fee has stayed the same: 500 P . This includes the Great Marsh in Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, which is not technically a Safari Zone but behaves very similarly.
• One smart strategy is to save your game before you enter the Safari Zone. This way, if you don't catch any Pokémon you want, you can re-load to avoid paying the entrance fee again.

• As an example of the sort of equation used in the games to determine whether certain Pokémon are captured, consider the equation from the Generation games (Gold and Silver): a = max((3 × HP max - 2 × HP current ) × rate modified / (3 × HP max ), 1) + bonus status where HP max is the Pokémon's maximum HP, HP current is the Pokémon's current HP, rate modified is the catch rate of the Pokémon modified by the ball used (every Pokémon and every ball modifies this in a certain way, and bonus status is the modifier for any status condition (sleep and freeze are 10, all others are 0). [5] X Research source When you throw a ball, a random number between 0 and 255 is generated. If this number is less than or equal to a, the Pokémon is caught.

Catching Pokémon in the Kanto Safari Zone

In the following sections, we'll highlight the rare Pokémon in each Safari zone and give specific advice where applicable. To keep these tables to a reasonable size, we've included only the rarest Pokémon in each area — for exhaustive information, consult the Safari Zone guides at Serebii.net and Bulbapedia.

Catching Pokémon in the Hoenn Safari Zone

Note that the Generation 4 Hoenn Safari Zone (Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire) won't be covered here as the player is allowed to engage in ordinary battles in this zone.

Catching Pokémon in the Sinnoh Great Marsh

Though Sinnoh's Pokémon preserve has a different name, it functions virtually identically to Safari Zones in other regions.

Catching Pokémon in the Johto Safari Zone

Note that the Safari Zone is not available in Generation 2 (Gold/Silver) but is available in the Generation IV games that visit Johto (HeartGold/SoulSilver). Note also that in this Safari Zone the player can arrange the six different areas in any arrangement desired. Finally, many of the areas in the Johto Safari Zones have Pokémon appearance rates that are not yet known — only data for the known areas has been included. See Bulbapedia for more information. [6] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• Once again, the data in the tables above only deals with the most noteworthy Pokémon in each area. In fact, many more Pokémon appear in each Safari Zone. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 2
• Remember — you have a limited number of steps inside the Safari Zone, not a limited amount of time. Thus, you can take as long as you like if you control your movement carefully. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 3

You Might Also Like

• ↑ http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Kanto_Safari_Zone
• ↑ https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_and_Blue/Safari_Zone
• ↑ https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Safari_Zone
• ↑ https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Johto_Safari_Zone#Areas
• ↑ https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate#Capture_method_.28Generation_II.29

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