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.