How to easily land nice, great, and excellent throws in Pokemon GO: Tips and tricks

How can players easily land great, nice, and excellent throws in Pokemon GO? Given how often throwing mechanics are used in Niantic's mobile title, it's an understandable question, especially when trainers are trying to catch particularly rare Pokemon. While landing high-quality throws might seem like a straightforward proposal, there can be more strategy to it than one might think.

Since this is the case, it doesn't hurt to examine some of the tips and tricks to land nice, great, and excellent throws in Pokemon GO. Hopefully, by examining some of the tactics used by longtime trainers, you can improve your throwing quality and land necessary throws more often to suit your Pokemon-catching needs.

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Tips and tricks to help you land nice, great, and excellent throws in Pokemon GO

The Bullseye Method

This Pokemon GO throwing technique can be incredibly helpful for curveball throws (Image via The Trainer Club/YouTube)

This method takes some imagination, but it can be great for landing quality throws in Pokemon GO. By imagining an X/Y axis with the Pokemon (and its aim ring) at the center, the goal is to throw a curveball at the best possible 45-degree angle, starting from the bottom-left to the center-right of the screen. It takes some practice, but once you have the rhythm down, you can predict a Poke Ball's path.

The trickiest aspect of this method comes with how hard you throw the Poke Ball, as some Pokemon being farther away or smaller/larger will require an adjustment for your throw. Still, with the X/Y axis in mind, you should be able to visualize the angle once you've practiced this method significantly.

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Pick the Right Pokemon

Different Pokemon have different aim sizes in Pokemon GO (Image via u/Lunoola/Reddit)

Although you don't always get to choose the creature to get a high-quality catch on in Pokemon GO, if you're working toward research or other goals to get nice, great, and excellent throws, finding the right target can make a huge difference. Larger Pokemon tend to have larger aiming rings, making landing excellent throws on them substantially easier than smaller monsters.

Certain Pokemon like Smeargle (which can be encountered daily via photobomb by taking pictures of your Pokemon) and Ponyta also have notoriously easy target rings. If you're struggling with specific Pokemon, it may be time to seek other options for easier throws.

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Learn to Circle Lock

The Circle Lock method works great on legendaries in Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic)

This method is tricky but gets easier once you break it down step by step. It tends to work best against legendary Pokemon or other creatures that are aggressive in Pokemon GO, as you'll need them to move quite a bit. Granted, you still have to make a precise throw with this trick, but it will ensure that the aim ring doesn't change position before you make your throw.

How to Circle Lock in Pokemon GO

1. Hold your Poke Ball until the aim ring reaches a size you're comfortable with, then let go of the Poke Ball, but don't throw it, simply let it go.
2. Wait until the Pokemon does its attack animation and finishes.
3. As quickly as you can after the animation completes, make your throw. If you've done this right, the aim ring should stay "locked" and not change size.

As previously mentioned, you'll still need to aim well to make your required throw, but Circle Locking lets you select an aim ring size of your choosing. Additionally, the timing window between the Pokemon's attack animation and your throw will take some practice to get used to, especially for Pokemon that attack often.

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Combine Quick Catches and Snapshots to Practice for Free

Anyone else do this quicker method to catch Pokémon? byu/osrsslay inpokemongo

This combination of tricks is perfect for practicing without wasting Poke Balls in Pokemon GO. It involves the "quick catch" trick and pairs it with using snapshots, which will ensure that a Pokemon stays on the map and can't be caught using the quick catch trick. While that might sound contradictory, it will be easier to explain with the steps below:

1. Begin by entering a Pokemon GO encounter and taking a snapshot of it. Then hold your finger on the berry icon. Begin to move the icon to the right, but don't go too far and open the berry menu.
2. With your other finger, make your Poke Ball throw.
3. If the Poke Ball makes contact, let go of the berry icon, which should cause the run icon to appear in the top-left of the screen. You can now tap it to exit the encounter. However, because you took a snapshot of the Pokemon, the ordinary quick catch trick won't trigger. This will allow you to exit to the world map and then re-enter the encounter and you won't have used any of your Poke Balls in the quick catch.

From here, you can enter and exit a Pokemon GO catch encounter multiple times without using Poke Balls, and the Pokemon won't de-spawn from the map since its snapshot was taken. You can simply enter the encounter, make a quick catch throw for practice, then exit quickly and re-enter as many times as you'd like.