Ty and the Army of Evil Zubats

I talked about the release of Team Go Rocket and their takeover of Pokestops across the world, but last Sunday, Team Go Rocket decided to try and take over every Pokestop on the planet for an hour local time. Which is fine because I actually haven’t seen many Team Go Rocket-controlled Pokestops and the ones I have seen, it’s ALWAYS the same ones. Specifically the one next to the old police station and the one where the new Cafe Nero is, and they’re like a 5-10 minute walk apart. So during this hour of intense Team Go Rocket invading, I decided to head out and clear some Pokestops.

And you know what? It’s pretty damn easy. If you have a Tyranitar with Stone Edge and Smack Down. In fact, I’ve been able to do most of these fights with literally just Ty, my CP 3490 Tyranitar that I evolved during December 2018’s Community Day event. Ty the Tyranitar has basically been carrying my ass through pretty much every fight, only getting a little help from Mel the Melmetal (sorry, I couldn’t think of a better name for him) and occasionally some help from Wonderdigger (the perfect, 4000cp Groudon), a lucky Kyogre, Dave the Moltres and Poundit the Rampardos. Hornier, the lucky Rhyperior, held the rear in pretty much every fight.

You see, the shadow Pokemon you fight against aren’t that strong. Their CPs can get extremely high, but it’s Generation 1 Starters, Rattatas, Raticates, the Zubat family, the odd Mudkip evolution, Snorlax and the Dratini family. The genuinely scary ones are the Dragonites and the Snorlaxes. But Ty the Tyranitar only really struggles with the handful of water and grass types. It is strong against flying and fire, neutral against dragon types and although Tyranitar wouldn’t normally be strong against Snorlax and Dragonite, his Dark typing makes the Snorlax with Lick do very little damage and Stone Edge and Smack Down will hurt Dragonites anyway because they’re Dragon/Flying. In fact, the only time I struggled was when I was put against Bulbasaur, Dragonite and Dragonite, the Bulbasaur whittled down Ty far more than the first Pokemon normally would and the two CP 8000 Dragonites were too much for Ty – they ended up getting finished off by Poundit and Hornier, and I still managed to beat them on my first attempt.

Okay, to be fair, Ty’s been really good because MOST of my fights, the first Pokemon has been Zubat or Golbat. I kid you not, I did 16 battles during this hour and came away with 9 Zubats or Golbats, one Snorlax, one Ratatta, two Bulbasaurs, two Charmanders and an Ivysaur. I even had a fight that literally pitted me against 3 Golbats. So of course Ty tore through them. But even then, Ty still held his own when I fought a Snorlax/Snorlax/Dragonite grunt, and I didn’t even lose a Pokemon.

But it feels like other people are struggling more. Sister didn’t have any trouble with her fight, but I’ve noticed brother having difficulties. In fact, the local nerd (who has maxed out everything at level 40) actually couldn’t beat the Snorlax/Snorlax/Dragonite fight at all. Probably because he was using Machamps, which are weak to the Ghost moves that these Snorlaxes can have and are weak to Flying as well.

There are two things that I think are affecting this though – firstly, not everyone has memorized the new patterns for attacks yet (and Stone Edge is a pretty easy one to do) but I’m pretty sure the damage the enemy Pokemon do are based on the CP of your own Pokemon. Simply put, using maxed out Pokemon might make the fights a bit harder. Frankly though, as long as you have the right Pokemon with the right types, the fights are pretty easy. The only ones that screw you up are the Snorlax and the Dragonite, and the Snorlax is only hard because it has Lick and destroys its main counter of Machamp.

Then again, most of the fights have been nothing but Zubats. Which are easy. But hard to catch. That’s fine though, because these fights are pretty fun and, aside from all the Zubats, the Pokemon you get are pretty good.