"[Video / Discussion] How we soloed all five Level 3 Raid Bosses as a L33 rural player"

#PokemonGO: Video: https://youtu.be/o83tBDb-qqMBackstory: We are a father / son (11yo) team from a rural part of Luxembourg. Our village has 2,000 inhabitants, four gyms and ten pokéstops.When raids were introduced in early summer, my son’s initial enthusiasm quickly gave way to disappointment: he realized that he couldn’t participate in the better raids because there were not enough other players around. The introduction of Legendary raids soon afterwards didn’t exactly help his mood…One day shortly after reaching Level 33, he carelessly threw his free daily raid pass at a Machamp raid, and – to our enormous surprise! – beat it with time to spare. This sparked a new interest. After some research we discovered that in theory five of the seven L3 Raid Bosses should be soloable at Level 33 (Flareon and Jolteon are not possible). We had a new challenge!!Through research and careful stardust consumption Gengar fell soon afterwards, Arcanine proved to be a matter of obtaining enough raw power, Vaporeon crumbled before our increasingly dominant army of Exeggutor… but Alakazam proved stubbornly difficult (particularly because, as rural players, we cannot simply go out to raid some Tyranitar to counter it).Finally, last weekend, we did it: A Psycho Cut / Focus Blast Alakazam was weakened by our squad of Gengar, chopped down to size by an angry Scizor and dazzled by my son’s nifty dodging. All five Raid Bosses defeated, without the use of any legendary Pokémon (rural players, remember?)... and still a couple of hundred thousand points shy of levelling up.We have made a short video of our exploits (above). With the exception of Alakazam, we have soloed all of these Raid Bosses multiple times, and the example shown in the video is not necessarily the best (in fact, in the case of Machamp, I am fairly sure it is the worst!)We hope our story can inspire other rural / semi-rural players, or indeed anyone who is trying to solo these Raid Bosses for themselves. Throughout this challenge we have learned much about the mechanics and strategic elements of the game, so here are our…Top tips for soloing L3 at lower trainer levels:-Gengar - A damage-loving chaos-wreaking machine, particularly if – like us – you are lucky enough to have Shadow Claw / Shadow Ball. Yes it’s frail, but a L3 Raid is effectively a race against the clock, and Gengar’s DPS is crazily high. For example, our ShC/ShB Gengar is unparalleled against Gengar and Alakazam, very handy against Machamp (triple resistance to fighting moves!), as good as most Rhydon against Arcanine and better than many grass Venusaur against Vaporeon. In a word, exceptional!-Exeggutor – Making the Great Coconut Monster a L2 Raid Boss was quite possibly the kindest thing Niantic have ever done for us. Bullet Seed / Solar Beam Eggys are quasi-essential against Vaporeon, and the double Psychic variants can take out Machamp in a much more satisfying way than those flimsy Alakazam and Espeon. Farm those Eggy Raids while you still can!-Dragonite (Dragon Tail / Outrage) – Although not apparent from our video, this awesome generalist has been part of our winning team against all Raid Bosses except Alakazam. The Hurricane variant is also utterly devastating against Machamp.-Eevee buddy – Find a high-level Eevee, walk with it for 10km, evolve and – hey presto! – you have an Espeon with a base attack stat of 261! A cheap and useful way of beating Gengar and Machamp; talking of whom…-Machamp is not our champ – Don’t get me wrong, Machamp is a great Pokémon. But it serves no purpose as an attacker against any of the current L3 Raid Bosses. If soloing is your goal, invest your stardust elsewhere.-Triple bar moves to finish – Picture the scene: You have 10 seconds left on a Vaporeon raid and it is already deep in the red. You bring in your prized Solar Beam Venusaur to finish the job; this can’t go wrong, can it? Actually, it can, and it will. When it comes to finishing off a Raid Boss under time pressure, the last thing you want to use is a one-bar, long window move like Solar Beam. By contrast, those unloved triple-bar moves such as Jolteon’s Discharge will provide the damage you need in a more consistent and safer way.-Break points – Hitting the fast move break point levels of your attacking Pokémon is important absolutely crucial, and a key stardust-saver. For example, we realised that powering up our Scizor from level 29.5 to 30 (5,000 stardust) added a whopping 13% extra damage per second against Alakazam, but maxing it out to 34.5 (60,000 stardust) would barely make any further difference. It seems happy at level 30. (Useful tool: www.dominikzen.com).-Movesets > IVs – Did you know that a 5-0-0 (11% IV) Snarl / Foul Play Houndoom will provide greater DPS than a 100%IV Snarl / Crunch Houndoom, all other factors remaining the same? Even without looking at type advantages etc., some movesets are simply vastly superior to others, and learning to recognize these is a huge advantage when deciding which Pokémon to power up and use in Raids. We built our own Excel-based model based on info found on the Silph Road and in Gamepress, but playing around with Pokébattler can also arm you with the knowledge required.And finally…-The Hallowe’en event – It’s a great time to prepare for L3 Raids. Farm Gastly and Houndour all you can, and walk with Exeggutor, Tyranitar or Dragonite to get those precious candy.Good luck, and thanks for reading / watching! via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2iunUGK