Does weakening an Aniimo help catch it?

Depleting an Aniimo's break gauge raises the capture success rate above 90 percent.

Wild Aniimo that are more difficult to catch generally require battle damage before a capture attempt has a realistic chance of succeeding. When you aim an Anipod, the game displays the exact success chance. Any throw below 100 percent can still fail after the pod shakes, so lowering creature health or inflicting status changes protects against wasted items.

Break and Stun States

Stunning a target or inflicting a break produces the highest capture increases available in combat. Depleting the break gauge is the most reliable route to pushing capture percentages past 90 percent.

Alerting an Aniimo outside of battle lowers capture success. If an unalert approach fails and the creature spots you, drawing it into active combat to deal damage and break it recovers your odds far better than throwing pods at an alerted target.