"Raiding and You: How to Raid and Raid More Effectively, An Introduction"

#PokemonGO: IntroHiya! NordicThunder here with my first in a series of Pokemon GO raid guides. A little bit about me. I have been a huge Pokefan ever since I was flipping through channels as a kid and first came across an episode of the show (Ash’s gym battle vs Misty). I remember racing home from school every day after that to watch reruns of the show. My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Blue and from there the love was cemented. I started playing Pokemon GO in July of 2016. I quit for a while, but came back this summer and am loving the game right now. I am especially loving raids. Enough about me, on to the content.Why Write Guides?There are resources out there that list good counters and good raid strategies, but one thing I noticed is these resources can tend to be targeted towards the people that need them the least. Obviously there are a lot of times when sending out an armada of perfect level 40 Shadow Ball Mewtwos, Dragon Tail Outrage Rayquazas etc, would be a good strategy, but for all but a handful of us, this is beyond our capabilities. I know I certainly don't have that kind of firepower. I found myself at raids with people asking me what they should use and I was only able to list off the few top counters I knew and give super general typing advice. Helpful, but certainly not helpful enough given that the information that is out there. Another thing I noticed is that these resources sometimes lack in explaining as to why those counters are good choices, or increasing people's overall knowledge of the game. That's fine, but I'm going to give it my best shot to give someone a fish AND teach them how to fish.Goal of These GuidesThe main goal here is that after reading these guides you will feel more comfortable raiding and be able to better prepare your teams for these raids. The co-op nature of raiding in GO is awesome. Raids are incredibly fun, but not being able to do them, or trying to do them and failing is less so. It is my hope that these guides help increase the level of fun you have playing GO! I am guessing that some of you will already know some of what I am putting in these guides (specifically this guide) and that is great! My goal, however, is that anyone could read this guide, regardless of their knowledge of the game, and start doing raids and be as effective as possible at those raids. Towards this end, I will try to point out trends and big picture ideas as I go.Why Do Raids?First and foremost, the best reason to do a raid is because they are FUN. With the gym system a bit underwhelming and no PVP, raids are currently the best endgame content and best way to test the strength of your Pokemon and your skills as a trainer. If that is not good enough incentive for you, consider the rewards. It can be opportunity to catch a monster that you haven't caught in the wild (either due to rarity or due to being a raid exclusive). Whether to fill out your Pokedex, look for shinies (Shinx!) or bolster your fighting forces, raids are a great opportunity to catch these Pokemon. Also there is the experience gained and the item rewards. Besides the normal healing items and stardust, you also have an opportunity at TMs and rare candies, incredibly valuable resources that can appear as raid rewards. By the way, did I mention that you get all this for free? You get one free raid pass a day! Also, they can stack to a certain extent. You can only only ever have one free raid pass in your inventory, but if you hold on to yesterday's pass and do a raid today, you can still get a free raid pass today the next time you spin the disc at a gym! Any day you don’t claim a raid pass is a wasted opportunity at free Pokemon and free rewards. Outside of the in-game benefits, raids are an awesome opportunity to bond with other trainers and make connections within your local GO community. I learned so much from people I met at raids, which was super helpful when I was first jumping back in to GO. The co-op nature of this game is awesome and even just recognizing people from raid to raid or at community day events is pretty cool.GlossaryBefore we go forward here is a glossary of terms I will be using throughout this guide and my other more specific guides.Breakpoint: The Pokemon's level at which point its fast move (although can also refer to charge move) does more damage.“Budget” picks: A term I am stealing from other games. Technically Pokemon don't have different costs, so I am using this term to mean Pokemon that is more likely for the average player/everyone to have. Like not everyone has Rayquaza or Mewtwo, but it's very likely for people to have access to evolved forms of Pokemon that spawn in the wild. Sometimes these are quite effective as counters.Bulk: Used to describe a Pokemon's ability to stay in a fight. Usually a combination of HP, defense and resistance to attacks. Interchangeable with terms like sustainability, survivability, or toughness.Counter: A Pokemon that is being chosen or is good for a specific raid/battle. For example, Machamp is a good counter for Tyranitar raids.CP: Combat Power. A rough estimate of a Pokemon's battle strength.DPS: Damage Per Second. Amount of damage a Pokemon will do on average over one second. Compare to Miles Per Hour.EPS: Energy gained Per Second. How much energy a quick move gains a mon when it is used over and over again.Glass Cannon: A Pokemon that does a lot of DPS, but tends to get knocked out quickly due to its low defense or HP. Gengar is the most famous example of a Glass Cannon in GO.IV: Individual Value. A set of hidden characteristics of every individual Pokemon that define its potential in terms of attack, defense, and HP relative to other Pokemon of the same species. Think of this as a Pokemon’s potential rather than current strength.Legacy Move: A move that a Pokemon can no longer get when you evolve it or use a TM on it. Sometimes because that move is no loner available to the Pokemon (Shadow Claw for Gengar) or was an exclusive move as part of an event (Meteor Mash for Metagross).Meta: Refers to the current game environment and the best strategies for that environment. For example, a meta counter is often the best or most popular counter given the current game situation.Mons: Refers to PokemonMoveset: The combination of fast move (the one where you just tap the screen) and charge move (the one you hit a button for) a Pokemon has to use in battle. Listed as fast on top and then charge on bottom on you Pokemon info screen. Moveset often goes a long to determining if a Pokemon will be a good counter.Optimal: Best or favorable. Often used in the context of best Pokemon possible for a raid or best moveset possible for a specific counter.Party/Squad/Team: interchangeable terms I will use to refer to the group of Pokemon you use to fight in a raidRaid Tier: There are 5 tiers of raids with increasing difficulty. In general a solo player should be able to do all tier 1 raids and most if not all tier 2 raids. A lot of tier 3 raids are soloable with good counters and preparation and pretty easily duoable. Tier 4 raids can usually be done with 2-3 people with good counters and preparation and so on.Rejoin: When all your Pokemon get knocked out and you go back to the lobby and select a team to get back in and fight the boss more.Resources: When I use the term resources I am generally referring to Star Dust and Rare Candy, although it can also refer to Pokemon specific candy and TMs.STAB moves: A 1.2x damage multiplier applied to attacks that are of the same type as the Pokemon using itTDO: Total Damage Output. The total amount of damage a counter will do before it faints. Compare to total distance.TM: Technical Machine. Used to change either a Pokemon's fast or charge move depending on the type of TM.Type/Typing: Refers to the different elemental properties assigned to each Pokemon. For example, Blastoise is a Water type. What type a Pokemon is comprises a large part of the strategy in Pokemon battling. These types help determine strengths and weaknesses.How to Raid?At a super basic level, when a raid is available at a gym, you click on it, wait for the boss cut screen to play through and then click on the battle button and give your pass up to join the lobby. The lobby will look something like this 📷. There, you will be able to select your team, but we will get into that later. The one thing I will say now is DON’T JUST USE THE RECOMMENDED TEAM. I get why it picks what it does and it's better than picking Weedles, I guess, but it’s not that helpful for raiding. Hopefully after reading these guides you will be able to easily set up WAY better teams to take on the boss!How to Find People to do Harder Raids?There are 5 tiers of raids with increasing difficulty. In general a solo player should be able to do all tier 1 raids and most if not all tier 2 raids. A lot of tier 3 raids are soloable with good counters and preparation and pretty easily duoable. Tier 4 raids can usually be done with 2-3 people with good counters and preparation and so on. The point is, you can’t do these higher level raids (which have the best rewards and usually have the stronger/rarer mons) by yourself. This begs the question, where do I find people to do these raids? The easiest and most obvious solution is your friends you already know who happen to also enjoy Pokemon GO. When I say easiest, I mean in terms of effort and communication. As is often the case, the location, timing and work schedule of your buddies who play GO just don't line up all that often to make raids happen. Not to worry! There are other options. One is to locate your local discord server(s) and use those to coordinate raids. That is how I find out about and coordinate most of the high level raids I do. You can use this resource as a good starting point to find your community. I suppose there are also facebook groups, but since I don't use them I can’t speak to their effectiveness. Let’s say you don't have access to those things or can’t find them, then what? Well, in that case your best bet is to find raids at busy malls and parks. It’s crazy how lobbies at a busy mall will max out on capacity seconds after hatch, even on what seems like should be a less popular time for raids. To that point, if you aren't communicating with others, I would advise you be at the raid you are looking to do at hatch. Most people will just go in at hatch and you can just join that wave. Combining these two ideas, being at a high level raid at a busy park or mall right at hatch will give you a good chance at having enough people to take the boss down. Make sure to check the number on the join button to see how many trainers are already in the lobby.BasicsPick your PokemonLike I said, don’t go with recommended. If nothing else you should replace the Pokemon in the recommended party with better counters by clicking on and changing each of them while you are in the lobby. Ideally, you would create a couple teams beforehand.You can do this by going to the left most tab on the Pokemon inventory screen and then clicking the button at the bottom right. It will look something like this 📷. You can change the teams by hitting those pluses and selecting Pokemon from your inventory.CP VS IVAs I said in the glossary, CP is a rough measure of a Pokemon's CURRENT strength while IV is a measure of a Pokemon's POTENTIAL strength. To me, IV is best used as a way to decide which Pokemon it is best to use resources (specifically dust) to power up. At the basic level, I recommend that between two Pokemon of the same species that have the same moveset, favor the one with the higher CP. While IV specifics can matter, (for instance I’d rather have a Pokemon more geared to attack than one geared towards defense for a raid), it's certainly not something I would worry about for now. CP trumps IV for immediate use in battle.TypingA big part of the battling mechanics in GO (and of course the main series games) is typing. The damage a move does can receive a multiplier ranging from .36 to 1.96 depending on the typing matchup. As such, Pokemon using moves with a type advantage will often outperform slightly stronger Pokemon with no such advantage. A handy chart with these typing matchups can be found here. Just sending out your highest CP mons is not the right answer!Slightly More Advanced ConceptsMove DifferencesOften times, the moves a Pokemon has matter. Between animation times, damage each moves, and energy gained (or needed in the case of charge moves), some moves are just better than others. Often times a Pokemon’s moves will affect its effectiveness in battle by a large amount. Some Pokemon are more effective or less effective than you would expect based purely on their available pool of moves.BreakpointsBreakpoints are generally important. A good guide as to how breakpoints work in GO and how you can best apply them can be found here. I thought about including break points in my counters section, but due to the nature of break points (and how they are dependent on matchup, attacker IV, weather, and friendship levels) decided that including lists of break points for each of these situation would a) be way more work it was worth b) clutter up each section way more than it was worth. If you want to find the exact breakpoints for your mon for a specific raid, I would suggest consulting your battle simulator of choice or this great interactive tool. In the general sense though, stronger mons do better, but using breakpoints can help you spend that hard earned dust and candy more wisely while still improving your raid capabilities.DPS vs TDOThere are two basic measures of damage Pokemon do in this game: DPS (Damage per Second) and TDO (Total Damage Output). They both matter and both have relevant uses for trying to plan out your best possible raid strategy. I will include mons who excel in both categories but will tend to favor Pokemon with higher DPS. Your greatest enemy when raiding is often the timer. If Pokemon A does twice as much damage as Pokemon B but takes 3 times as long to do that damage, you are usually better off going with Pokemon B.How to Use These Guides?At a super basic level, a specific raid guide will help you identify which Pokemon, that you already have, will be most helpful for that specific raid. Fill 2-3 teams (starting with the best on the first team you will use and so on) and take aim at the raid boss! This can also be a good resource for suggesting Pokemon to other trainers at raids WHEN THEY ASK FOR ADVICE. It's supposed to be fun, so don't make a scene when people don't pick the Pokemon you would want them to. That being said if they ask for advice, friends don't let friends use recommended. Best of luck and happy raiding! via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/2R49Wb4