The Mediocre Suicune Raid Event

Suicune is a weird Pokemon. It’s worthwhile in the handheld Pokemon games but in Pokemon Go, Suicune is just a mediocre Pokemon and I’ve never been sure why. I think it’s because it’s a pure water type that doesn’t do very much damage at all and is tanky but can’t be used in gyms. In fact, a lot of people didn’t really want to come out to do the Suicune Raid event, and I spent most of the event doing it with tourists. Or sitting at home because I don’t have the money, time, effort or golden razzberries to catch more Suicunes.

Yeah, I only used the 5 free passes, plus one extra free pass and one premium raid pass. And I didn’t get any shiny Suicunes. Didn’t get any good Suicunes either. Didn’t even learn how to pronounce Suicune because I swear everyone calls the dumb water dog something different. And frankly, considering how I was raiding in a group of 12 accounts and had 19 people in the last raid, there should have been more people getting shinies in general. I think in our group, we got a grand total of one shiny per raid and no one got a shiny in the last raid.

The thing is though, everyone already had a Suicune, apart from the folks with new accounts who missed the months and months of getting Suicunes in research breakthroughs. There’s no real use for Suicune, since Kyogre is stronger and tougher, but also because you can get a Kyogre with a higher CP from research breakthroughs than from Suicune in raids! Seriously, the maximum CP from a Suicune in a raid (excluding weather boosts) is 1704. A level 15 Kyogre from a research breakthrough has a maximum CP of 1764 and a minimum CP of 1695.

And even if you do power up a Suicune, it doesn’t have very good moves. It does have Ice Beam and Hydro Pump but the amount of candies required isn’t worth it, especially when you can get better ice Pokemon in the form of Glaceon, Mamoswine and Weavile and better water Pokemon in the form of, well, most other water Pokemon, but Feraligatr, Blastoise and Marshstomp from the top of my head. Entei has the same problem, as there are so many fire types that are more useful, easier to power up and easier to come by. Raikou only just squeaks by because it’s only just the best electric type. Only just. But electric was only really useful for Kyogre and Suicune and not much else.

What makes things worse is that the three Legendary Beasts actually have mediocre shinies. Suicune’s only real difference is having royal blue fluff rather than pink fluff, but that pink fluff is kinda what makes Suicine look more… varied. Entei isn’t much better and only Raikou has a somewhat nice shiny, not as noticeable as many other legendary shinies but at least it’s a full body colour change into a more orange-y gold than being pure yellow, rather than a few recoloured or tinted parts like the other legendary doggos.

The worst thing though is that we’ll have to see these shiny guys again, most likely in either raids or research breakthroughs. Heck, after the wonderful month that has been filled with Rayquaza raids, we’ll probably have to deal with a few weeks of Suicune raids.

I suppose at least I got shiny Raikou and Entei. Brother is 0/3 when it comes to raid event shinies, having failed to get a single shiny for all three legendary beasts…