What is the best Pokemon for catching other Pokemon?

What are the most important things when trying to catch a Pokémon?

• Reducing it’s life to 1hp
• Putting it asleep or freezing it
• Preventing it from fleeing, if it can
• Not dying while doing it

How does one achieve that?

• False Swipe
• Spore, Hypnosis, Sing or any other sleep only inducing move (as there is no freeze only move)
• Trapping via Ability(Arena Trap, Shadow Tag, Magnet Pull) or Moves (Mean Look, Block, Spider Web)
• Bulky Pokémon, fast and precise Sleep Users

What are the problems with that?

• Ghosts (as False Swipe is normal)
• Pokémon with Vital Spirit and since Gen VI Plants in the case of Spore
• Ghost and Normal Pokémon ignore some of these
• Strong Offensive Pokémon and Legendaries e.g. Rayquaza

How does one solve these problems?

• Type changing abilities (Aerilate) or type changing moves (Soak)
• Abilty changing Moves like Entrainment or Ability ignoring Abilities like Mold Breaker
• Spider Web
• More Bulk, Evasion and Sleep

Now after the theory, lets see which Pokémon can fullfill these requirements best:

Smeargle

Pro: Can learn all Moves to fullfill the Requirements, Easily Obtainable

Con: Terrible stats require it to be a much higher level than the target to live long enough to catch the target. (Lv 70 Wild Rayquaza kills Level 100 Smeargle in 2 hits)

Mandatory Moves:

• False Swipe
• Spore

Optional Moves:

• Soak (To hit anything with False Swipe)
• Spider Web (For trapping of fleeing enemies like Teleport Users and Roaming Legendaries)
• Skill Swap (For Vital Spirit Users)
• Double Team (to decrease risk of taking damage and recoil-damage users to kill themselves)

Gallade

Pro: Relatively bulky on the Special side

Con: Problems with Ghosts

Mandatory Moves:

• False Swipe
• Hypnosis

Optional Moves:

• Mean Lock (for Trapping)
• Skill Swap

Mew

Pro: Great stats overall give it a good bulk and make it a relatively fast sleep user

Con: No Trapping and problem with Ghosts,hHardest to aquire as Hypnosis on Mew is only available via Pokémon XD, and the optional Seismic Toss also in 3rd gen.

Mandatory Moves:

• False Swipe
• Hypnosis

Optional Moves:

• Skill Swap
• Seismic Toss (To start weaken 4x resistant Pokémon, to prevent the risk of running out of False Swipe AP)
• Double Team

Mega Pinsir

Pro: Physical Bulky, Strongest False Swipe User that can hit everything, as his False Swipe becomes type Flying

Con: No Sleep inducing and Trapping, Requires Megastone

Mandatory Moves:

• False Swipe

Optional Moves:

• Seismic Toss
• Double Team
• Iron Defense (to increase Bulk especially aggainst Pokémon with Rock type moves)

Personal Conclusion:

I’ve used Gallade as my personal go-to Catch Pokémon especcially for the roaming Legendaries since Gen IV, excluding Gen VII, where I just used my Parasect with False Swipe and Spore to catch all obtainabe Pokémon.

So in my Pokémon catching history it has definitively been Gallade.