"Turning their charge moves into their fast moves": Pokemon GO players react to latest changes to raid mechanics
Niantic revealed in a recent post on their official support page on X that Pokemon GO raid mechanics had been updated to "increase stability, reduce latency, and provide the ability to expand them in the future." This has led to an unforeseeable increase in the difficulty of raid battles.
Several players who challenged Pokemon GO Kyogre raids in the September 2024 cycle took to the TheSilphRoad subreddit to share that they faced a massive barrage of Charged Attacks from the raid boss.
u/lsbsqvd started a thread where they said:
Several players commented on this thread stating that they had similar experiences. u/RoxieTheWeirdo explained why this was happening:
"It's not just you. Basically Niantic made it so raid bosses generate 2500% more energy when taking damage (0.02 -> 0.5 in the game's code), basically turning their charge moves into their fast moves because its charge move is almost always available.
u/RoxieTheWeirdo further added that the Kyogre raid they challenged the day before exhibited similar behavior, where it threw five Charged Attacks for every Fast Attack that it used. This led to seven of their attackers fainting before the boss was taken down by seven raiders.
u/Skadi_1902 brought up the other change that was introduced to Pokemon GO raid mechanics:
"They also made it so the raid boss uses the charged attack always after gathering enough energy – before it had a chance of using it."
Niantic has made Pokemon GO raids more difficult for smaller groups to complete
The changes to raid mechanics have little impact when raiding with big groups, as was explained by u/csuazure:
"when you're in a huge party the raid target DPS isn't nearly as relevant because the timer you're dealing with is a 10th it's HP. But if you're short manning a raid it's VERY relevant when they have higher damage since you are dealing with 5x as much HP individually."
This can be seen from u/thehatteryone's comment:
"4-manned one like that. We each went through 4 teams before it died. Ridiculous. When do you think we'll get primal rereleased, because, I think my inventory will not cope very well if I see the wrong moveset too often."
u/Ok_Primary_1075 believes that these changes were introduced to "push players to buy more revives and potions." To this, u/kodipaws added that these would also encourage players to raid with bigger groups instead of "shortmanning."
What Pokemon GO raid changes mean for players
The present changes to raid mechanics will make it more difficult than ever for players to solo defeat 5-star raid bosses like Kyogre. It will also require players to raid with bigger groups and spend more Revives and Potions during the battles.
On one hand, this goes with Niantic's principle of pushing players to collaborate with each other to take down strong raid bosses, while on the other hand, it can be seen as a tactic to push players to purchase more resources to make their gameplay experience easier.
With a fantastic 5-star raid lineup with Groudon and Zacian on offer in September 2024, how things pan out concerning Pokemon GO raid mechanics remains to be seen. Niantic has said that they are open to feedback on these alterations.
Check out our other Pokemon GO guides:
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- Buddy Evolution Adventure Together guide
- Best Fast Attacks in Pokemon GO
- Sierra counters
- Cliff counters
- Arlo counters
- Giovanni counters
- Team GO Rocket Grunts