Are there any ways to make catching the Legendary Beasts in Gen 2 any easier?

Question

I got Crystal and really wanted a HA Ho-Oh with my OT name, but it's starting to not be worth it. It can take hours of RNG just to encounter one of them, and because Status Conditions don't increase catch rates in Gen 2 and the Fast Fall doesn't work for more than 3 specific Pokemon, actually trying to catch them in an Ultra Ball before they flee is equally as painfully RNG-based.

So, is there anything that can be done to even give me a chance? I've encountered Raikou and gotten down to near-death, but nothing I do works: I've tried trapping it via Mean Look, but it just uses Roar after 2-4 Turns, and I've also tried just throwing a single, Hail Mary Level Ball at it while leading with a Level 81 Pokemon with an equal amount of failure. The main problem is that like most people, I don't have hundreds of hours to sink into catching 2 Pokemon (let alone into catching 2 MEDIOCRE Pokemon with their worse Abilities).

Comments

https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/ Unfortunately, it doesn't have a legendary catching guide for GSC.

Answer 1

According to my source freeze and sleep will still make them easier to catch in Gen 2 just burn paralysis and poison had a glitch to make them not matter so put it to sleep and it will make it easier to catch unless you want to keep going for Ice Beam and pray for a freeze

Source https://m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate#Capture_method_.28Generation_I.29

Answer 2

So, in generation 2 the only status effects that actually help in catching a Pokemon are Sleep and Freeze as stated above. In crystal, once you get a master ball use that on one of the legendary roaming Pokemon unless you already used it. Then for the other remaining roamer, stock up your pokeballs of choice. I would recommend ultra balls (x2 catch rate) or level balls (x4 catch rate if you are doubling the opponent's level) according to Bulbapedia.

As for finding the legendary dogs in the wild, I will link a mathematical strategy below to help in finding and catching the two remaining ones, entei and raikou. I personally used this guide using the mathematical principles and I found and caught raikou in a half hour. I had already found and caught entei by sheer luck with a master ball. I didn't use a jinx like the guide recommends. I used jumpluff lol. If your Pokemon is faster and knows a move that will put them to sleep (I recommend spore which can be learned by paras at level 22 or use jumpluff like I did with sleep powder) Spore has 100% accuracy and sleep powder is 75%. Heck, you could try putting it to sleep and switching out Pokemon to get that advantage of the level balls enhanced catch rate. If you have any further questions on the subject just ask!

Good luck and happy hunting :D

Mathematical strategy to catch those dogs

Answer 3

The one thing you can do is trade for lots of different ID numbers to give you a better chance to win top prize at the Lucky Number Show, since having multiple Master Balls means you can spare one for each of them and not have to worry about fleeing or low catch rates.