Max Raid Discussion Thread

SecretT said:
Personally I thought that the next raid event would include the musketeer trio, since they're allowed in ranked battle, but you can't catch them in the game (so you need to transfer them from previous gens).
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Considering the musketeers are datamined to be a part of one of the Tundra events, it's unlikely we end up having them as raids for now...
 
I've been kind of bored in quarantine so I've been looking into what Pokemon are best for AI only raids. Initially I went with the hardest hitting raw damage i could get. Stuff like Dracovish, Zacian etc. The idea was to hit with do much raw power that you can KO through shields.

The problem is, of course, the AI dying too quickly. There's usually 6-10 shields that have to break and if I get unlucky and hit the boss without a shield much of my damage gets negated. Online with humans yeah raw damage is good. But I found sheer offense weak overall even if it functioned against most 5 stars. Yes you kill them a turn faster but that doesn't matter if you get team wiped by spread moves.

So I tried defense. Lapras is the obvious one as it gets free dual screens. Since Max moves break two shields regardless of effectiveness and a shield-less boss is usually one hit from death I started to think that just spamming defensive max moves was the key. However sometimes the boss starts with shields at the start of the match usually negating my attempts at setting up a screen. Lapras is excellent against anything ice is spammable against but it's really weak vs anything it doesn't match up well against. So what else is there?

I ended up settling on Krookodile. This set has won pretty much every 5 star raid even with crappy allies like Wobbuffet or Magikarp. The idea is to try and stack debuffs on the opponent and defensive buffs on my team. While the boss can remove debuffs they do help negate stat boosts such as Max Fighting or Swords Dance.

https://pokepast.es/99208c133fee3716

Intimidate helps against approximately 50% of raids, especially the recent Zeraora spam lol. Rocky Helmet is imo the best raid item in the game even if the chip is usually irrelevant. Switch to Lum Berry against status spammers. Max Steel and Max Dragon protect against physical damage while the other two moves guard against special. STAB Max Ground is your strongest move but it very rarely matters what you click as your goal is to keep your AI allies alive while they pick away at the shields. Krookodile doesn't have any 4x weaknesses so generally the 2x hp buff and 30 level advantage is enough to keep it alive.

Anyway tldr this might be common knowledge already but I think the best way to deal with 5 star raids using AI is to play defensively (relatively speaking). If the AI breaks 1.5 shields per turn on average and you crack 2 that means most raids should be consistently KOed in 4 turns. So your goal should be to keep that stupid fucking Magikarp from dying before that.

Does anyone have other ideas for partnering with the AI? I'd love to hear them!
 
MrHands said:
Does anyone have other ideas for partnering with the AI? I'd love to hear them!
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I've actually had mild success with Follow Me Rocky Helmet / Lum / Leftovers Togekiss and Unaware Clefable.
Togekiss has Extreme Speed as notable move which is literally only used to break a last shield occasionally, and works well against ground pokemon, Clefable is more of a generalist.
Same concept as Zeraora, facetank every max move while the AI (hopefully) kills the boss before you die twice.

Obviously, this does not work against spread move spammers. Those honestly I feel really boil down to offense, some luck with the boss' move selection, and not getting Wobbuffet (I could swear they improved Solrock's AI and it actually attacks more often than not). I read of the Wide Guard spam option earlier, but it feels just as inconsistent as the boss can also not use any spread move and get exactly the same result.
Luckily, this sort of raids is rare, only big nightmares have been Galvantula and Gigalith so far (plus Giga Snorlax), as those have multiple spread moves to spam and if you get unlucky they can wipe the AI within 2 turns.
 
Do DLC raids show up for people who have not bought the DLC? I’ve had several people join low level (3-4 star) raids for common mons like Tentacruel that I did not see happen pre-DLC. Is it just people trying to complete their Dexes ASAP? Is it because ore is hard to get?
 
dodiabla said:
Do DLC raids show up for people who have not bought the DLC? I’ve had several people join low level (3-4 star) raids for common mons like Tentacruel that I did not see happen pre-DLC. Is it just people trying to complete their Dexes ASAP? Is it because ore is hard to get?
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Yes, everyone can see the DLC raids even if they didn't purchase the DLC. Raids for "new" mons will likely fill up quickly for a bit.
 
sb879 said:
Bulbapedia has a list of HP Multipliers on their Max Raid page. Does anyone know the source of this data?
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i wouldnt be surprised if it's simply datamine, as the raid data is not "dynamic" (outside of the usual IV / nature / ability / shinyness) and the raids are pre-set (serebii also has the data for movesets, drops and spawn chances for example).
 
So... in light of the Crowned Tundra coming out soon, and the info we have on the den explorations, I think it'd be a good time to prep this thread for Dynamax Adventures. We recently found out that you have to fight 3 raid battles before facing off with the legendary, and the damage will carry over from all those fights as well. But defeating the legend will grant you a 100% catch rate in return. Stay tuned for tips and new discoveries in the coming days as we try to tackle everything together!
 
Count Bleck said:
So... in light of the Crowned Tundra coming out soon, and the info we have on the den explorations, I think it'd be a good time to prep this thread for Dynamax Adventures. We recently found out that you have to fight 3 raid battles before facing off with the legendary, and the damage will carry over from all those fights as well. But defeating the legend will grant you a 100% catch rate in return. Stay tuned for tips and new discoveries in the coming days as we try to tackle everything together!
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Its probably worth making a new thread when the mode comes out to list all the sets and information for people to use properly rather than having to dive through 16 pages on this thread before finding anything useful. I am sure it'll be a popular mode (Especially if there is an endless clause). I know I am excited about being able to play multiple raids even if I am a bit suspect over some of the "leaked" sets for the Rental Pokemon.
 
DHR-107 said:
Its probably worth making a new thread when the mode comes out to list all the sets and information for people to use properly rather than having to dive through 16 pages on this thread before finding anything useful. I am sure it'll be a popular mode (Especially if there is an endless clause). I know I am excited about being able to play multiple raids even if I am a bit suspect over some of the "leaked" sets for the Rental Pokemon.
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Well if the deal ends up being "you start with 4 mediocre sets, 3 of you get to upgrade them", I think it makes for decent co-op play.

Prolly a bit less decent with randoms if the final legendary actually ends up being difficult enough.
 
There is an endless mode, by the way. So I'm guessing that's worth its own thread in the same vein as rental facilities.
 
So is it a impression of mine, or the pokemon you fight in the Max adventures have a very high chance to be HA?
 
Worldie said:
So is it a impression of mine, or the pokemon you fight in the Max adventures have a very high chance to be HA?
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The starting ones seem to have a good chance aswell -- someone opened with a Speed Boost Blaziken in a raid I was just in. I'd assume that the legendaries can't roll their HA, however.

These raids seem quite well balanced so far. Even if Xerneas keeps kicking my ass.
 
Rarycaris said:
The starting ones seem to have a good chance aswell -- someone opened with a Speed Boost Blaziken in a raid I was just in. I'd assume that the legendaries can't roll their HA, however.
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Might just be a theory of mine, but I think the mons you can get and fight are from the same pool(s), so if they have HA or no might just be fixed (like their movesets)

Elso everything is a guaranteed catch so good if you want weird balls usage.
 
I felt like sharing the "Raid adventure with AI" experience with you lot
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I just got an Impostor Ditto as the first thing to fight in an Adventure, and amazingly, nobody else took it after we beat it. So I did, and we got a Power Construct Zygarde at the end. Hello, Zygarde on our team.

It totally negated the need to worry about PP management, too. Sadly, we lost because some guy decided to Dynamax his 5% HP Absol and it died before it could get a hit in, instead of letting me Dynamax the next turn (on full HP) and maybe neutralise its Attack stat.

(On a related note, GF had mercy on us and did not give the raid Xerneas Geomancy.)
 
So I've been doing my first Adventures and caught my first legendary. This is how it went so far:

1: Lost on the second battle. Worked enough to know what the hearts on the top left mean.
2: Reached the final battle, against Zapdos. Here, I learned that a double KO means the raid boss wins (either that or it uses the same rules as trainer battles). Zapdos KOed an Azumarill with a critical hit Brave Bird, and KOed itself from recoil. Still, we lost.
3: Final battle again, versus Kyurem. A single Hyper Voice KOed three Pokémon. Needless to say, it didn't go well.

Then the fourth attempt went...

The final boss had a Flying-type, and by the third battle we had a Hitmontop, a Duraludon, a Raichu and a Bewear.

Looking for the easy route, I went to challenge a Grovyle. One of the AI partners inexplicably decides to change their Raichu to a Grovyle, and the boss revealed itself to be Ho-oh. And even more inexplicably, Grovyle WORKED. By using Endure every other turn, it didn't get KOed until Ho-oh entered the desperate phase, and we won handidly.

So far I'm loving the experience. It's challenging but fair (at least with AI partners), but it never gets too easy and it makes you feel like you earned the legendary (instead of just throwing a dice and seeing if it's the numbe your wanted).
 
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Soooo while the max raid events typically are so sudden i forget to cover them, this time we have a halloween event!. From now til nov 1st, spooky mons, Especially Gourgeist, are out in about in raid dens. in particualr, 5 star raids have the gourgesit sizes in 4 different categories while there's no version exclusives, there's a 1% chance to find either small or XL as a shiny, meaning a 2% shiny chance for a spooky pumpkin to add to your collection!
 
I've decided to quote this post here to not derail the other thread
R_N said:
By my theory crafting, Pelipper is probably the best possible Pokemon if you're on a Groudon run
Drizzle cancels out sunny day (at least until it uses max flare), it'll weaken max flare while the rain's up (& resists it anyway), it cant be hit by max quake and of course, it has Wide Guard
Mantine has similar boons going on but also doesnt have drizzle so if it drops a max flare someone is probably dead

Wide Guard strats...will kind of vary for other pokemon. Xurkitree took me a few tries and honestly my worst attempt was the one where I had wide guard. Sometimes stacking the typing in your favor will do better for you. Sometimes you just get lucky on damage rolls or what the opponent decides to do.
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I think Electrics are a special case because you can almost completely neuter them by just having ground types (doesn't help that 3 out of 5 Wide Guard users are weak or superweak to electric either)

Grounds on other hand... boi having Pelipper or Mantine does make them manageable.
Or rather I should say, NOT having Pelipper or Mantine makes them ridicoloulsy monkaS, expecially Groudon and Zygarde
 
Gotta be careful with grounds regardless. I won because I had 2 o them, but if it throws out a power whip or max overgrowth its a one way trip to OOfs Ville
 
My luck with shiny hunting legendaries seems to be going reasonably well so far, finally got shiny Necrozma and completed the Ultra Beyond quest. Don't know how many attempts it took, but it felt like less than 100... It's the third so far, after Fini & Stak (and no non-legendary shinies yet), overall it seems like under odds for all 3 (with shiny charm).

I don't intend to shiny hunt all the legendaries, just the ones that I don't already have from giveaways/RNG abuse in Ultra Sun. Unfortunately, that still seems like a fair number of legendaries... there's still a few I could try to get from US (at very least Lando, Mesprit, Uxie, Ultra beasts), but my 3DS's circle pad broke so I don't think I'll be heading into the ultra wormhole any time soon. :(

EDIT:

Just had a paaaaainful Lugia run. Wartortle in wave 2 froze my Jolteon and it JUST. STAYED. FROZEN. All the while my stupid AI teammates just kept spamming coaching, acupressure, and life dew. :psycry: Eventually Hatterene got tired of playing white mage and finally started play roughing, eventually taking out the Wartortle while Jolteon stayed a popsicle. The next battle was Alolan Marowak, who wouldn't do my poor Jolteon the courtesy of blasting it with flare blitz to unthaw it. Hitmontop at least started going for drill run while drapion and Hatterene spammed acupressure and life dew. Jolteon stayed frozen for like another 4 turns before it finally unthawed and got off a max phantasm, which didn't even take Marowak out, it needed another drill run. After that, Lugia went down like a piece of cake.

tldr why is indefinite freeze still a thing GameFreak :fukyu:
 
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