Pokemon Go

How exactly being high level makes them bad?

The Elite Four confirmed secretly part of Team Rocket.

For the record, seeing HP is fixed for raids of each level, the higher the base HP of a species are, the less imposing it is in raids. Kyurem has the same defense as Rayquaza, but, outside of raids, higher HP; this translates into it being as frail as Rayquaza as a raid boss. Meanwhile, Reshiram and Zekrom (and Dialga, who has the same stats) have a high defense.

Conversely, Regirock and Regice have relatively low HP, but a massive defense, and that made them so infuriating as bosses. And oh my god Shuckle, with its huge defense but low HP, became the hardest to defeat of the Tier 3 bosses.

So I had my very first encounter with Jessie and James today. At 3 AM. Worth the slightly loss of sleep.

I have an annoying habbit of waking up in the middle of the night, and may have taken to checking Go during those hours for balloons. Probably not great for screen time, but I need my components, damn it. I actually haven't fought Giovanni once yet, so hopefully this event should provide my first.

I fought Giovanni today via hot air balloon.

I fought Giovanni yesterday. His Shadow Persian had a quick move that was super effective against my Giratina, but my Giratina still managed to KO the Persian and take out both of Giovanni's shields.

A pity the Suicine I caught doesn't seem to be very good. Ah well.

I used my Sceptile's Fury Cutter on Giovanni's Persian to make him waste shields, then used Rhyperior to tank until Persian went down. Used Mewtwo for Nidoking and Suicune and barely won. My Suicune has max Attack and Defense but middling HP.

And Giovani is down. Did that via the special research and I still haven't actually finished Looming in the Shadows, so may have another one soon-ish; just need to beat Arlo and I've got another super radar.

I fell backwards into my best-case scenario Giovanni fight. I led with my max level Best Friend Poliwrath. First the Persian was using Feint Attack, so I was resisting that while building up with Power-Up Punch. One I took that down, I had an Ice Punch ready right as Dugtrio came in; one-shotted that. Finally, his shadow Suicune was using one of the types I resisted as a fast move (with HP, who can say for sure which), so I was able to whittle it down more with Poliwrath until that was finally knocked out, then sent out a CD Venusaur to finish the job.

Also, I'm entertained that I got a purified perfect Koffing from James. I'm not sure what I'd even do with it, but I have it.

Managed to do a couple Kyurem raids yesterday with some invited friends. I was kind of blown away when one raid gave me 16 Premier Balls to catch Kyurem...and then the dragon was caught on the very first ball.

I mean, I knew that friends can give you more Premier Balls, but damn...

Ideal conditions will give you 18 balls. If it's during an event that gives the flat bonus for friends of any level raiding together, that goes up to 20.

The higher the friendship level, the more balls you'll get as a bonus.

I've been so used to raiding with strangers and having only around 10-12 balls to catch a Legendary. That's why I was a little floored by the 16 balls.

Though having a Legendary escape after being handed 16 Premier Balls to catch one would probably sting a lot...

I've personally raided with someone who landed 18 consecutive Greater/Excellent curves and the Mewtwo still got away. I've also had more than a handful of times with 18-20 balls, doing similar, and not caught the thing until my last or second-to-last ball (mind, I've also had a bunch of first-or-second-ball catches as well).

I also believe excellent curveballs simply never works on a legendary, for I always caught my legendaries with a great, nice, or even completely off center.

I did indeed get another Giovanni fight done... but I lost the second Suicune. Damn you, Team Rocket!

Oh yes, with invites to raid a thing now, we all should be able to invite each other to raids.

Strangely, nobody joins when I invite them, even when they show online. I need new friends. :P

Well not everyone is on call 24/7 for raids . Not to mention sometimes they get invited to other raids first and I can't do multiple raids at once!

Do you need a Remote Raid Pass in order to join in on a raid you're invited to? I've only ever invited friends to raids, so I don't know what it's like to be invited.

Yes

Keep in mind that there's also a bug with invited raids where if your team wipes, it will kick you back to the map. You can just rejoin via the invite again, but it does a weird thing where it checks if you have a remote pass again, so make sure you have at least two remote passes every time you do an invited remote raid (note that rejoining won't consume the second pass, so Niantic only screwed up the initial joining section of the code).

I managed to do an Alolan Marowak raid today with the help of two friends. He's only a 2-star Pokemon, but at least I have an Alolan Marowak I can transfer to my Let's Go Pikachu game.

Times like these make me wish there was a way to withdraw Pokemon from Gyms and get coins without having to wait for someone else to knock them out, since I'm a little short on coins at the moment.

Speaking of Alolan Pokemon, I also completed the first two sets of the Friendship research tasks and was pleasantly surprised to see Alolan Raichu as one of the rewards.

Wow, he used to be a 4-face raid when he first launched. Guess they nerfed him back down to 2.