"Raiding and You: How to Raid and Raid More Effectively, Heatran Edition"

#PokemonGO: IntroHiya! NordicThunder here with another raid specific guide. A link to my general/intro to raids guide can be found here. If you haven’t read that and/or are not very familiar with raids, I would check that out first and then come back to this one.​FormatFor these guides, I will first introduce the raid boss in question and give a little information about it. I will include a (somewhat subjective) difficulty rating and a (subjective) raid worth rating, meaning how worthwhile it is it to do that raid. You will find that I will likely never give a Tier 5 raid less than a 3/5 as the rewards are great enough (rare candy and TMs) to make these raids worthwhile. I will then delve into the counters. For the counters, I will separate them into 3 groups: 1) the top meta picks: little explanation required, these are the best of the best counters, smoke em if you got em 2) “community day” picks: these will be mons that generally fall between the other two categories but due to their wider spread availability due to either community days (Tyranitar, Metagross etc) or raid challenge days (Moltres, Gengar etc) people are at least somewhat likely to have and 3) “budget” options: these will be Pokemon that I think it's likely you will at least have a couple of if not all of them.I do not think that this will be all encompassing or cover every single possible option, but I do think it is very likely that anyone would be able to cobble together a competent team from these options.​How to use this GuideMake an A and a B team and maybe a C team and fill them up. Unless there are massive level differences, start with the top meta picks (group one then group two) and work your way down. With that groundwork out of the way, let's get to our next raid boss: Heatran, The Lava Dome Pokemon!​HeatranThe official Pokedex describes Heatran saying “It dwells in volcanic caves. It digs in with its cross-shaped feet to crawl on ceilings and walls.” Not going to lie, I’m pretty freaking hyped about Heatran as the new Tier 5 raid boss. I heard rumblings that it was likely going to be one of the Lake trio, which while cool, would mean yet another pure Psychic type and was not that exciting. But no! We get to continue the Gen IV Legendary rollout with the Steel Lava Dome. Heatran is here to heat things up in the dead of winter. All aboard the hype train.Difficulty:Possible? 2Doable if you have top tier counters and know what you are doing: 3-4Likely if you just use reasonable counters and everyone is at least a reasonable level: 5+Worth Doing? 4/5I’m still holding out on the first 5. It’d be a 5 if they had given it overheat instead of fireblast. Still an amazing Fire Pokemon, especially for PVP. 6 double reistances and 4 normal resistances help make it pretty durable. That being said, its move pool (Fire Blast instead of a better Fire Charge move like Overheat) really hurts it is in it’s raid capabilities. It is not a top Fire type raid option, lagging behind Moltres, Blast Burn Charizard, and even Flareon. Still, T5 rewards, plus a cool Pokemon who can be a solid durable choice for raids and PVP make this a 4. Not worth using Premium Passes in my opinion, but not a “you’re only doing this for the rewards and at EX locations” type deal.Why Heatran?Pretty easy answer. It’s the new Tier 5 and the dual typing make the best counters maybe not as obvious. Definitely goes from potentially difficult to an easy task for 3-4 trainers if you know what you are doing.​COUNTERS aka The Actually Good Part of the GuideHeatran is extra weak (2.56x) to Ground and weak (1.6x) to Water and Fighting type attacks.*weather disclaimer - weather can have a sizable impact on what your best attackers will be, I will do my best to include attackers who shoot way up the rankings based on weather but for the most part will approach this from a weather neutral standpoint. Take notice of weather and how it may affect your decisions. This is a brief guide on weather boosts.*DPS disclaimer - I will be quoting DPS assuming neutral weather and no friendship boosts with level 40 perfect IV Pokemon.For this raid, I am just splitting the top meta picks into two groups to distinguish the couple absolute best counters from the rest of the top choices. Group one has mons that I am rock solid confident that two identical trainers with these mons could reliably duo a (non weather boosted) Heatran without needing weather or friendship boosts. Group two will contain still premium counters, but options that make it harder for the duo to work and more likely to need 3+ trainers or weather/friendship boosts.Group OneGroudonOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud ShotEarthquakeClearEvery raid has its star and this raid's runaway star is Groudon. To give you an idea of how great Groudon is relative to the field: A lot of times you’re happy to find a way to get like one extra DPS, but from counter to counter within a cluster the difference is often fractions of a DPS. Optimal Groudon,however, is about 2 DPS better than the second best counter for this raid! And 4-5 DPS better than the next best options after that. If you've been sitting on a bunch of Groudons, you are in for a good time for the next month. The one note for this and some of the other top meta picks for this raid is that it REALLY needs to have it’s optimal moveset.​RhyperiorOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud SlapEarthquakeClearIt’s nice to see some Sinnoh Pokemon near the top of a counters list. Makes sense that when you take an already pretty capable Ground type Pokemon in Rhydon and then evolve it to an even stronger mon, that you get a really good raid counter. Need this moveset to be group one. Surf as a charge move keeps it in the meta pick range, but seriously cripples its ability to duo and thus would become a group two type counter. Not 100% sure I would recommend evolving to this though. Sinnoh stones are valuable and I’m not 100% sold that there won’t be some exclusive Drill Run type event at some point. That being said, if the only way you can get the duo done is by evolving your Rhydon(s) and the duo is something you really want/need to do go right ahead.​Group TwoRhydonOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud SlapEarthquakeClearNow normally I don’t include non-fully evolved mons in these lists, but given the scarcity of Sinnoh stones and how good Rhydon is itself as a counter, I had to give it its own separate entry. Just not quite good enough to be group one, it is the best of the rest. Can still reliably duo Hetran most of the time (depends on Hetran’s moveset) and needs very little in the way of boosts to be a reliable duo counter. In fact, clear weather makes Rhydon a great duo counter. It’s still OK with Surf but is no longer in this top meta pick group at that point. That makes it more of a budget pick type counter.​SwampertOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud ShotEarthquakeClearSwampert’s day to shine! Falls off a lot with Surf instead of Earthquake as its charge move (seeing a trend here?)​GolemOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud SlapEarthquakeClearKanto represent. Mud Slap is better than Mud Shot for the moveset.​KyogreOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherWaterfallHydro PumpRainThe first non-Ground type counter to make the list! The best Water type counter. Use with confidence. If you have rainy weather, Kyogre becomes a top level counter and can reliably be involved in the duo.​MachampOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherCounterDynamic PunchCloudyThe gift that keeps on giving. It’s really cool how Machamp keeps finding ways to be a useful mon in this game. Karate Chop as a fast move is only a fraction worse, so no real need to use a fast TM and give up a legacy move if legacy moves are important to you.​FlygonOptimal Fast MoveOptimal Charge MoveOptimal WeatherMud ShotEarthquakeClearRounding out our list of top meta picks is the Ground Dragon Flygon. This is its only viable moveset for this raid, but given where it falls on the list and that it’s overall optimal moveset is the STAB Dragon Tail / Dragon Claw, I would be incredibly hesitant to use TMs to give it its optimal moveset. If you already have a Flygon with this moveset though, it’s a pretty good counter.​WEATHER SPECIFIC NOTES: As mentioned before, in rainy weather Kyogre becomes a group one level counter, becoming tied with Rhyperior in terms of effectiveness. Also in rainy weather, Gyarados with Waterfall and Hydro Pump jumps up to a group two level counter falling right between Swampert and Golem. Clear Weather boosts all the group two Ground type counters (Flygon, Golem, Rhydon) and makes them group one level counters. Cloudy weather boosts Machamp to group one levels of effectiveness and makes Breloom a group two level counter better than even Rhydon! In this raid, weather doesn’t really effect which Pokemon you would choose but rather changes how possible it is for you to successfully duo Heatran while relying on those certain Pokemon.​Community Day Type PicksThere are no Community Mons that make GREAT counters for this raid. Blastoise with Water Gun / Hydro Cannon is ok. It would be near the bottom of the budget picks list in terms of effectiveness. If you are using Vaporeon you won’t want it to have Last Resort anyways. In rainy weather both become decent choices, but still worse than a handful of choices on the budget picks list. If you are in a raid with 12+ trainers and realllly want to use your exclusive mon, go for it. Otherwise I would suggest looking for better options.​Budget PicksI won't be going into much detail for these, other than listing their optimal movesets and optimal weather. If you feel I missed any obvious choices here feel free to let me know in a comment. I tried to pick options that had a decent DPS, weren’t just super fragile, and that I figured there was a good chance even the average casual player might have just from random catching and raids. I would not recommend using any resources (dust, candy, TMs) on any Pokemon from this list. Just pick the strongest ones with the listed movesets you have from this list to fill out your teams.MonOptimal Moveset (Fast / Charge)Optimal WeatherAlolan DugtrioMud Slap / Mud BombClearBreloomCounter / Dynamic PunchCloudyHariyamaCounter / Dynamic PunchCloudySandslashMud Shot / BulldozeClearDonphanCounter / EarthquakeClearBlazikenCounter / Focus BlastCloudyGyaradosWaterfall / Hydro PumpRainyRapidashLow Kick / Drill RunClearWhiscashMud Shot / Mud BombClearArcanineFire Fang / BulldozeClearDugtrioMud Shot / Mud BombClearPoliwrathMud Shot / Dynamic PunchClearKinglerMud Shot / Water PulseClearVaporeonWater Gun/ Hydro PumpRainyTrends to Learn From and ConclusionAgain we see the importance of dual typing and that should be the biggest takeaway from this guide. Heatran is both a Steel and a Fire type. Both these types are weak to Ground type moves, so Ground type moves deal 2.56 times the amount of damage as they normally would. That is MASSIVE. It would be very easy to look at this raid, say ok Heatran is a Fire type let’s send in Kyogre. While Kyogre is a very good pick here, you’re leaving a lot on the table by not considering the dual typing and finding the true best counter, Groudon. Pokemon with dual typing will often have overlapping weaknesses (like Heatran with Ground type moves) and by exploiting this weakness you can be way stronger against these Pokemon in both raids and PVP. In the past we have seen this with Rayquaza raids (where Ice was extra strong), currently we see this in TTar raids (where Fighting is extra strong) and in the future we can maybe expect to see this with something like Garchomp (where Ice is again extra strong). Looking for and considering these dual typing weaknesses can help you better plan your teams in both raids and PVP!It is my hope that you will now better know what to expect when facing off against Heatran and better know which Pokemon of yours will give you the best chance at a successful raid. Be sure to leave any feedback (always looking to improve) in the comments, and happy raiding! via /r/pokemongo http://bit.ly/2AiFung