Take the survey and tell them what you think!

https://survey.nianticlabs.com/s3/53d98ba62bea

• It would allow you to identify Pokémon with high stats before catching them

( Credits: PKM )

Hello all,

In my previous post, I simulated thousands of raids to determine the most versatile Pokémon (lvl 40, party power on, no dodging). A suggestion I received was to show the best Pokémon per type and to focus more on solo players, as this is the more prevalent playing style. This is what I will do in this post.

QUESTION: What are the best Pokémon per type and how useful are they against Legendary and Mega Raid bosses?

Scenario

This scenario assumes that you have level 40 Pokémons, have the best moves available, and that you are not part of a "Party", and can therefore not benefit from the Party Power feature.

Ranking

In short, I rank based on damage output & stamina (Breadth). Edit: this skews the results on purpose towards bulkiness as I don't like glass canons.

ANSWER

Per type, you see the best Pokémon and how they rank across all 135 Legendary & Mega raid bosses (each raid boss is represented as a square).

If a square is filled with a blue color, it means, that the shown Pokémon is ranking at least in the top 20 of attackers against that raid boss. The darker the blue, the higher the placement.

Takeaway

• Not all types are created equal. Grass, Poison, Bug, ... types are only effective against a handful of raid bosses. If you are short on resources, I suggest that you do not focus on Pokémon with those types
• Unsurprising meta. Mega Rayquaza, Primal Groudon, Necrozma Dawn Wings, Eternatus, Zamazenta Crowned Shield, ... These known heavy hitters lead the rankings in their respective typing and can be used against a large number of raid bosses. Invest in those first!
• Hidden Gem. Mega Mewtwo Y looks fairly irrelevant if we only judge by the type chart. However, as highlighted in my previous post, Mewtwo Y is the most versatile Pokemon in the game and ranks in the top 20 against 83 of the 135 raid bosses! Followed by Mega Rayquaza and Eternatus with 77 and 69 raid bosses respectively.

I hope this was somewhat informative and if you have questions, criticism or suggestions, I am happy to hear them!

Catch rates on raid bosses have been abysmal for a long while and we should advocate for change.

One of the highlights of Gofest and the lead up raid week were the boosts to Premier balls making raid bosses very easy to catch.

The challenge of fighting a raid boss should be defeating it with a group, not catching it. Catching should be a reward, not a second challenge that takes as much time (if not more) than the raid itself. People should not be paying for premium items to challenge a raid boss and not even catch it. It’s incredibly demoralizing.

I’m a fully grown adult who nails excellents and golden razzes on every throw and 2 of the 5 Solgaleo remote raids I participated in fled (17+ premier balls to start). It is incredibly disheartening when I take my nephew out to raid and he’s excited to defeat the boss but can’t catch it. I have to trade it to him and the little guy is low on stardust for how often this happens.

Black and White Kyurem are options to make the catches easier, but with the way the game works, I don’t know when I’ll be invited to a random remote raid. Half the time I cannot activate their adventure effect, then go into the raid screen, use the pass and get into the raid. Everything is so laggy and takes so much time it’s not worth it half the time unless it’s a raid hour and I know that I will be primarily catching raid bosses for a time.

I’m all for buffing raid bosses, adding shields, etc to make the raid bosses harder to take down if there is the ability to guarantee a catch (like raid bosses in the MSG). Catching legendaries in the MSG are always frustratingly long but were given more options. We can bring the Pokémon’s HP low, give it a status effect, and use a buffed ball. In Pokémon Go, our only option is Golden Razz and excellent throw. And we’re limited in the number of Premier balls.

What are your thoughts on this given we’re in a wave of a new legendary shiny raid after so long? Is anyone else having an issue with catching legendaries lately?

The sample size is small but the 3 of us got the background from the same pokestop (win a raid task). So out of 9 tasks 3 had a background from the same pokestop.

In the new APK, the CP/Pokémon name background opacity has been reduced. Left: v417.6, right: v421.

( Credits: G47IX )

Shiny Lunala Debut ✨

( Credits: G47IX )

I pop an adventure incense, and I eventually came across two separate instances of Party Hat Gengar. I assume that the other party hat mons are also available via incense, and you don't have to raid (aside from knowing and guaranteeing a catch via raiding rather than RNG from incense).

Solgaleo: Fire Spin/Solar Beam

Note: Shadow Reshiram budget is thin; I only had 2 decent ones so I ran this party to show you don't need 4x or 5x to make it work.

Party:
Main DPS: Lv 50: Shadow Reshi: 14/9/10
Supp DPS: Lv 48.5 Shadow Reshi: 12/8/8 (Reaches breakpoint at this lvl)
Executor: Lv 50 Mega Blaziken: Blast Burn & Blaze Kick (IV's dont matter apart from 15 attack)
Catch Tanks: 3x NDW Lv 50: Psycho Cut / Moongiest beam (IV's dont matter apart from 15 attack. 12 def preferred but doesnt matter that much)

Notes on NDW:
NDW's role is to catch tank solar beam when it doesn't hit at optimal times. Tanking 1 solar beam + 1 fire spin allows it to reach 58.0 DPS otherwise it's 53 DPS. 3 of mine are 12 def but the other is 14 def and I was fine. Why Psycho Cut vs Shadow Claw. The problem with shadow claw is speed. It is astronomically slow building to Moongeist Beam. You want to waste minimal time on NDW getting that moongeist beam off because the tradeoff is Shadow Reshiram up-time. PC is mathematically the better fast move. You can calculate this on https://soloraidarchive.github.io/ct-calculator.html or check the database.

Strat:
Aim for 1 rejoin and catch tank poorly timed solar beams with NDW; otherwise absorb with Shadow Reshiram. Shadow reshiram can tank 2 solarbeams relatively comfortably however if you want the 1 rejoin breakpoint, you're hoping that solgaleo goes quiet and spams fire spins. At that point it's probably 1 solar beam and out.

NDW should be swapped in roughly 3.0 or later into the solar beam to have time to sponge the additional fire spin.

Blaziken is used to buy time to reach 1 rejoin which is roughly an exit after 150s at the earliest but ideally 130s if possible. No dodging though.

In the last cycle, blaze kick is pretty critical to finish off the boss if you don't have time to cast the slow blast burn. The video shows a great example of the run winning off of blaze kick!

Event change over started ~an hour and a half ago. Zero Turtwig spawns. I’m also in Sunny weather - every other Sinnoh/Unova/Kalos starter has spawned, with grass and fire being plentiful with the weather boost.

Edit: lol 5 min after posting this they’re appearing in abundance. Hi Niantic and Scopely 👋🏽

Recenty got an email asking for feedback back with this link. I’m not sure the demographic that it is trying to appeal to but apparently I am not it. It says i do not qualify. Curious whom they are looking for feedback from. I attached a link below.

I chose options 35-44, not in any of the industries, i own an account, played within last 24 hours, lvl. 67,

https://survey.nianticlabs.com/s3/53d98ba62bea

Caught remotely at 8:31 pm est

To my surprise I just got my 2nd Lure from Switch. I'd suppose the limit is removed because of the 10th Anniversary pass reward.

Caught from incense. Would assume this applies to other starters' final evos but may require confirmation.