"Everything about rocket leader battles from Atlanta"

#PokemonGO: Since the introduction of team rocket leader battles yesterday, I have battled 25 leaders. Following is the summary of my experience:The buildupYou get a mysterious component after defeating a rocket grunt. The drop rate is 100%. These mysterious components take up bag space. However, they are coded like the free raid passes, i.e., you get a mysterious component even if your items bag is full. As soon as you defeat a grunt, you first get a pop-up for 500 stardust followed by the mysterious component, and then you go to the catch screen. Once you catch the shadow pokemon, you get another full-screen notification for the same mysterious component, with the total number of components in your inventory at the bottom.As soon as you get 6 components, the game asks you to combine the components to create a radar. The radar takes up one bag space but frees the bag space from the 6 components, effectively freeing you 5 spots in the bag. After a small animation, you equip the radar. A radar icon sows just below the Go+ icon or the compass icon if you don't have Go+. Tapping on this icon changes the layout of the overworld and it scans for the hideouts of the rocket leaders. It shows you all the hideouts 'available' to you. The 'available' part is discussed later. Note: If you have gotten a radar then you will not get any more mysterious components until you use the radar to defeat a leader.The leader hideouts are only located at pokestops. These pokestops do not look anything special. You only see them if you tap on the radar icon and they only change the color when you go in their range. In a particular area, the hideouts are same for every player, i.e., same pokestop, same leader, and same shadow team as well. The hideouts disappear at 10pm and respawn at random pokestops the next morning.This is an important part. The hideouts seem to only update daily. If you have defeated a leader at a hideout then it no longer shows up. It can be an issue. In our pokestop rich area, I saw 4 hideouts today morning. I defeated those four and I no longer see any other hideouts in our area. I have to go to a new area each time to find more hideouts. My friends still see those 4 hideouts because they have not defeated them. It can be an issue in places with low pokestop density if you get only a few hideouts a day. Therefore, when you use the radar, you only see the 'available' hideouts, which are the ones that you have not defeated yet. If there is no such hideout in your range then you get a message from your team leader telling you to go to a new area to explore.The battleCliff always starts with Meowth, Sierra with Sneasel, and Arlo with Scyther. If someone else has defeated that particular hideout then you can ask them for the 2nd and 3rd pokemon. The leaders use shields just like the team leaders in master league, i.e., always on the first 2 charged attacks. These battles can be somewhat difficult if you aren't prepared with decent type matchups. After some trial and error, I have been using the following teams with no issues:Against Cliff: Machamp, Metagross (doule steel+psychic 2nd move), and Mamoswine (double ice+bulldoze as 2nd move)Against Sierra: Lucario, Giratina-O, and (Raikou) (Haven't needed Raikou yet)Against Arlo: Melmetal (double electric+rock slide 2nd move), Mamoswine (double ice+bulldoze as 2nd move), Entei (Heatran might be better but I don't have one).Personally, I think Arlo is the most challenging battle. Cliff and Sierra do not even need 3 counters often.Once you defeat them, you get to rescue their first pokemon, i.e., Meowth, Sneasel, or Scyther. They can be shiny too. After the battle ends, the radar disappears and you can restart defeating grunts to get components for another radar.The whole process of defeating grunts and then the leaders will eat up a number of revives and potions, so be prepared.The rewardsYou get 1000 stardust and 2 reward bundles. Each bundle contains one item. The items can be a revive, max revive, hyper potion, max potion, Sinnoh stone, and a Unova stone.You do get the rewards after defeating the leader even if your items bag is full. I have tested it twice. You do get the notification when you are setting up your party saying that your item bag is full and you won't get rewards but it doesn't matter. I have gotten max revives, max potions, and hyper potions as rewards even when my bag was full.The likelyThere is likely a daily limit to the number of stones you can get from defeating these leaders. So far, the limit seems to be 2 per day for Unova stones. You can certainly get both of those Unova stones from one battle. I have not heard anyone report more than 2 Unova stones in a day.The speculationIt seems that they are tweaking the rewards. Yesterday, all the rewards seemed equally likely but today my group has been getting more revives and potions, and a lower number of stones. I hope, they do not make the stones a huge grind. via /r/TheSilphRoad https://ift.tt/33qbCSm