Ho oh, raid boss

So we have a new legendary bird visiting us for a couple of weeks. Bye bye December 12.

If the attacks available for this flying/fire pokemon are those stated on PokemonDB, then this bird becomes naught but a decks filler.

No fire/flying primary means lower damage done against neutral defence. Add that Extrasensory and Steel Wing aren't exactly the sweetest attacks to begin with.

If the primaries are poor, then perhaps we can mitigate that problem with good charge attacks. Brave Bird and Fire Blast are type matched with ho oh, but Brave Bird is a bad joke of a one bar attack with its atrocious 90 power. Fire Blast comes with 140 power, which is decent.

But...

Notice the available combination Extrasensory and Solar Beam? Damagewise it's in the same ball park as Extrasensory and Fire Blast. While 1.2 times 1.4 (type bonus applied to Fire Blast's power) is 168 compared to Solar Beam's 180, Solar Beam comes with a 0.7 second longer cast time with its associated opportunity cost. For all practical purposes you coud argue that the damage output from ho oh is the same with both attacks against a neutral target.

Still... there's something familiar with that combination...

Yep, that's your trusty exeggutor for those of you who want it as a general attacker. Most sane players would run their exeggutor with single grass attacks since dragonite is a better pick for a general attacker anyway, but let's compare ho oh with an exeggutor running the same attacks.

Exeggutor comes with a 233 base attack, and unless the in-game version of ho oh has been nerfed to kingdom come, ho oh comes with a 263 base attack. Exceggutor receives a type bonus for both attacks, and ho oh doesn't. In effect we can multiply that 233 base attack stat with 1.2 for a result of aproximatgely 280.

Congarulations, getting a ho oh won you a worse version of an Extrasensory / Solar Beam exeggutor. Sure, a tankier version, but still. And you shouldn't rig your exeggutor with Extrasensory in the first place.


Oh well, but I still want one, so how to beat it up?

Well, it's a flying/fire type pokemon. Remind you of something?

Moltres.

It's time to bring out your golem again. Splash out with rock-attack omastars and Stone Edge tyranitar. Add vaporeon last in your line-up if you run out of attackers.

Oh, and don't expect as easy a ride as you experienced with moltres. Ho oh tanks a lot better, and neither your golem nor your tyranitar is going to smile if the raid boss comes with Steel Wing. While it might be a bloody awful primary attack when you're the one attacking into a gym, it's still a perfectly valid defensive attack. Oh, and it's super effective against rock type pokemon, so the lack of a 1.2 type bonus multiplier for ho oh is replaced by a 1.4 times attack bonus against your golem/tyranitar.

The Extrasensory version will have your tyranitar take absolutely no damage at all until it's time for the charge attack. Instead of a 100% chance of a non-effective charge attack as was the case with moltres you're seeing a 66% chance.

Solar Beam represents the remaining 33%. A 180 power, super effective against rock and water type pokemon charge attack is likely to one-shot just about anything that you bring to the fight.


All data in this post taken from PokemonGoDB. I have yet to fight this legendary raid boss myself. Sometimes reality becomes, well, too real. Come this weekend I plan to spend some extra raid passes to make up for it.

New raid boss, new pokemon level

So something did indeed happen that was worth mentioning.

First of all ho oh is available as a legendary raid boss. This lasts until December 12 and requires no EX raid pass.


Secondly, and in the long run more important, pokemon max level has been increased from 39 to 40.

The last two clicks cost a whopping 10000 stardust and 15 candy each, and they yield the same half-rate increase in CP as every click above level 30.


Lastly it's worth mentioning that we're still receiving double XP and stardust for catching pokemon, and if you had a maxed out line-up, catching pokemon is what you want to do.

The near future

So this post will be all about guesstimates.


Today is likely the last day of the event. It's possible that the rewards will linger on for a short period since players would have been more than just merely grumpy had we hit three billion mons caught with ten minutes left to find and catch the regional reward.

Well, it's Niantic we're talking about. Making players grumpy hasn't deterred them before.


With November heading towards a close we'll see raikou drop out from raids soon. Starting December 1 we should see a new legendary or a rehash of the old ones.


Niantic stated four big updates during this year. Three of them have occured, and the only remaining one is generation three arriving for real. I expect that to happen within the week.


EX raids should be available for more players pretty soon. I'm not saying they'll be widely available, but at least the atrocious distribution should vanish.

While most of us will wait for our first mewtwo raid a select number of players, possibly highly localised, should receive invites for ho oh ex raids. Maybe not within the week, but probably before 2018 hits us.

Event, update

Since an hour or so ago I'm receiving double stardust for everything. That's an indirect indicator that we've reached 1.5 billion pokemon caught.

So, now we're running the following benefits:

• double XP
• double stardust
• six hour lures
• increased spawns, increment number two

I'm unclear about how much the spawns have increased since the insertion of both spawn-additions during the event, but there are definitely more pokemon to throw balls at disregarding the added number of active lures.

For the high level player this means we've reached the real target. Sure, at 3 billion pokemon caught we get to throw poke balls at a regional pokemon normally not available where we play, but that will get old pretty soon.

Those of you still heading towards level 40, use the coming weekend, and if you're inclined to speed up the XP you gain, then do buy the package deals. It's hard to go wrong with four times the XP gained when you evolve away the crap you'll be getting tons of.

A legendary raid with a lucky egg active is 40k instant XP. Two of those raids close to each other is a no-brainer.

For the rest of us -- just enjoy the stardust bonanza. Six hour lures, increased spawns and double stardust is a huge bonus.

Oh, and this is where you start giving them super incubators a greedy look. Remember, double XP and double stardust. At least slot in ten kilometre eggs inside. You can't go wrong with upwards to 5k dust for walking 6.7 kilometres.


Extra update: If you're worried about the 3500 max pokemon caught during a week -softban, use the added spawns as an opportunity to boss raid and catch pokemon. Normally boss raiding is a huge wrench in your plans to grind stardust during an event like this, but now you should be able to do both.

New event

This one is a  bit odd.

For a week we have to catch as many pokemon as possible. At half a billion, which we have already reached, a double XP bonus for everyone is unlocked as well as more spawn points. Those of you who throw lure modules around you will notice that they stay for six hours.

When we hit 1.5 billion pokemon caught double stardust will unlock as well as even more spawn points.

At 3 billion farfetched will start spawning outside the East Asia region, and they in turn will see kangashkan pop up.


As it is an event, there's the usual package deals.

The smallest one is just one item. At 200 coins you can shop one of the super incubators. If you're wading in coins, go bonkers. For the rest of us this one is a little iffy. While it certainly pops its content quicker than the regular incubator, do you collect enough 10 km eggs to merit the extra 50 coins for faster hatching?


Then there is a Special Box

• 380 coins
• 20 great ball
• 6 lucky egg
• 1 premium raid pass
• 4 lure module

If you've yet to hit 40 and want them XP at a limited budget. Go for it! You're getting 8 lucky eggs at standard price. The extra raid and lure modules are for free. The great balls? Well, I guess you can throw them after something that pops up at a lure near you.

And we have an Ultra Box

• 880 coins
• 16 lucky egg
• 4 premium raid pass
• 8 lure modules
• 30 ultra ball

Once again a deal geared towards players hunting XP. You're basically getting 16 lucky eggs at standard price without having to give up 25 slots, ie the cost should be compared to the 25 lucky egg bundle. This yields you 4 raid passes and 8 lure modules free.

It's a better deal but not a fantastically much better deal.

For players like me? The package deals are utter crap. Not only do I have to shell out coins, but after than I'm forced to manually discard the lucky eggs. So, once again -- if you don't need the lucky eggs, the package deals are shite.

Well, maybe with the exception for the super incubator, possibly.

Balancing gym material, bag management

No, I'm not dead yet. There just hasn't been much meriting a post lately.

Since the change in item-ratio from stops people once again have problems handling gym battles.

There are two simple methods alleviating this problem.

• balance pots and revives
• show preference to gyms

A third, but expensive, one is to participate a lot in boss-raids.

I'll primarily stick to the the first two ones.

Despite feeling the lack of potions and revives, in the end most players are lacking in one departement. Basically the problem is mostly either a lack of potions or a lack of revives.

Potions

When your problem is a lack of potions, which is the most common one, then make certain you get your attacking pokemon downed. And I really mean this. It's a perfectly valid tactics to stack almost downed pokemon for an attack to make certain they go down. Sure, drop an anchor at the end to ensure you see the defender go down.

Now you have a bunch of downed pokemon.

Do not heal them. Just revive and attack again. This way you'll go through your revives without touching your potions.

There's a side twitch to this scenario. As you're attacking with half healed pokemon you'd better start taking notes on defender weaknesses as your attacking pokemon are going down at worse than twice the ratio for fully healed pokemon. This is the result of receiving more charge attacks compared to the ratio at which you're able to use them yourself. Each pokemon going down is replaced by another half healed one with energy at zero.

Revives

Out of revives but have access to potions?

Change your gaming style when attacking to one where you swap pokemon before they go down. After you've gone deep enough into the gym to leave battle (could very well be going right through it) then exit the gym entirely and heal up your pokemon.

You'll eat through you stash of potions at an amazing rate but revives should be left unused.

Gyms

Since the change in ratio you really shouldn't have any massive problems with poke-balls to throw at the critters in the wild.

If you can afford it, then skip spinning pokestops and concentrate on spinning gyms. They yield a far better ratio of revives and potions compared to stops. There's very little use for more balls when you're hunting gyms.

This is where getting that gold badge comes into use. Focus your gym battling to a select number of gyms to speed up your badge-XP in order to receive more items from those gyms whenever you spin them.

Boss raids

Whenever you're running dry on gym material, if at all possible, skip low number of players boss raids.

Hit raids at gyms of your own colour if you have that option.

Learn the best setup you can muster. The number of balls you receive corresponds directly to the number of potions and revives that boss-fight will yield.