I used 90% of the additional Pinaps and 50% Ultra Balls I stocked for Charmanders
Just to catch 1 Zapdos lol, yes obviously I curved, burned through like 20 Pinaps & Ultras, and it had bad IVs, so I transferred. Seriously that how hard is it to catch a level 15 Zapdos?
Answers
Frankly, I am much more surprised that 20 Pinaps and Ultraballs would constitute 90% and 50%, respectively, of your community day stock. That is about as much as I expect to throw at Charmanders during the first 30 minutes of the event. At this moment I have stockpiled 124 Pinaps and 111 Ultraballs.
I did the same thing for Bulbasaur, but after Bulbasaur community day I had MORE Ultraballs at the end of the day than I started with because they completely broke the Catch/Flee rate for Bulbasaur. (Seriously, I had 2 flee out of 300 or so that I caught. And my catch rate for Bulbasaur outside of Community day was so bad that I totally anticipated catching 1 Shiny and quitting for the day.) I evolved 3 from Bulbasaur to Venusaur and I've still got 600 candies left over - stopped using Pinaps because it was just so easy to catch Bulbasaurs. (Started with just under 100 due to how hard it has been to catch Bulbasaur outside of Community Day)
I'm expecting the same thing for this Community Day, though maybe not quite as extreme. Has Niantic (or Silph Road, or other sites) mentioned that Charmander will be harder to catch than Bulbasaur was?
"R"NG, man.
My first two Zapdos this month I got cocky on - I Pinap'd and used a Regular Ball, got Excellent Curveballs and caught them on the first throw.
Today, I did the same thing - except after 10 balls (5 Regular and 5 Ultra) and 10 Pinaps, (approximately, anyway) I got desperate and used a Golden Razz... and it STILL took me 3 Excellent Curveballs to catch it with an Ultraball.
It's all "R"NG, man. I'm grumbling, but it turned out to be a 96% Zapdos (15/13/15!) so I'm not complaining, but man. For a few minutes I actually thought it was going to flee. I know it won't, but when you've hit it with 8+ Curveball/Excellents and it's jumping out each time, and the game had an update the night before... man.