Once you boost your Pokemon Go trainer level to level 5, you’ll unlock a new feature for the game: raid battles. These battles take place at Pokemon Gyms out in the world at random times of day, replacing the usual back and forth for control between the Pokemon Go Gym Teams with an all-hands-on-deck battle against a super-powerful boss Pokemon, where players of all kinds can work together to bring that Pokemon down. This is, as in most massively multiplayer games, known as a raid boss. On this page we’re going to run down some basic information about raids - plus list the current raid bosses. On our raid list, you’ll find every Pokemon currently appearing in raid battles, their tiers (so how difficult they’ll be and how frequently they’ll appear), plus some other useful information like their Pokemon type and their type weaknesses - which in turn will help you to decide which the best counters are for that raid Pokemon. Find a Pokemon team that can blast down the enemy, abusing their type weaknesses.
How to Raid from Home with Remote Raids in Pokemon Go
Given the ongoing challenges in the world with many places in lockdown, Pokemon Go developer and operator Niantic has made some clever changes to how the raid system works in-game. Typically, you’d have to actually visit the site of a Pokemon Raid in order to take part - but in the current locked-down, stay indoors circumstances, that isn’t possible for most. As a result, the company has added the Remote Raid Pass to the game, an item that allows you to raid from home! Remote Raid Passes have now been added to the game. These new items, the familiar raid passes but now blue in color, will allow you to raid on any Pokestop that is close enough to you to appear on your ’nearby’ screen, accessible from the nearby box at the bottom-right of the Pokemon Go map that’s the main screen from which the game is played. This means you won’t be able to raid from miles away, but you can raid on any number of nearby Pokestops. Remote Raid Passes are initially be available in a new bundle in the shop that will cost just 1 Pokecoin, while additional ones thereafter will be initially priced at 100 Pokecoins. Sadly, there’s no easy way to get them beyond this - which means you’ll likely have to fork out real cash if you want to continue doing remote raids, especially during the current ongoing international crisis.
Pokemon Go Raids: raid rewards and other information
Taking on raid battles has a few benefits in Pokemon Go. For one, you’ll be given various rewards for tackling raids - player experience, but also rare items like Rare Candy, Golden Razz Berries, plus Charged and Fast TMs. But the best reward is that you’ll also have the chance to catch the Pokemon featured in the raid battle - and the Pokemon that show up in raid battles are often rare, desirable or even exclusive to raids. Some of the best Pokemon in the game are nabbed this way. Your chance to capture the Pokemon is limited, however - in raid encounters you’ll be forced to throw Premier Balls once you’ve defeated the boss, and the number of Premier Balls the player is awarded depends on your performance in the raid battle, plus things like how the gym team allegiance breaks down between the raid party members. For the best results you want to try to inflict the most damage possible, have your team be in control of the gym, and be fighting alongside a majority of members of the same gym team. If you run out of Premier Balls, the raid boss will run away. Raid battles range in size and difficulty - some will even be possible to solo, while others will require a full 20 players to reliably tackle. Like most things in Pokemon Go, raid battles run on a rotation depending on what else is going on around the game. Below, we list the current raid battles, listing each raid boss tier, boss CP and some Pokemon type weakness suggestions for that battle. Thanks to Leekduck for the image - with more information in the table below that.
