A Like and Dislike for Mega Raids in Pokemon GO

It seems that most people have somewhat accepted Mega Pokemon. Now that there are easier ways to earn Mega Candy, and the Megas stay around for 8 hours, it’s all just about acceptable. Yet still, there’s something about Mega Raids that irks me. They’re just not quite right.

No one really wants to do them

If you’re unlucky enough to miss a debut of a mega Pokemon, then you probably won’t find many people hosting them. At least, that’s the problem I’ve been having with Mega Raids. I couldn’t get people to join in Manectric raids nor Ampharos. But even when the mega raids came out, there wasn’t really anyone scrambling to get them either. While stuff has changed so that Megas are more easily obtainable, that didn’t really manage to drag back many players.

If it wasn’t for remote raids and apps like PokeGenie, it’d be even harder getting a group together.

The rewards aren’t as good as 5-star raids.

Legendary raids just happen to give out better rewards. You get more rare candy and golden razzberries by doing a level 5 raid. Mega raids are of a similar difficulty to Legendary raids, but the only neat thing is getting silver pinaps for your efforts. Oh, and the Mega Candy. It’s generally set out so you need to do 3-4 Mega raids to be able to evolve a Pokemon.

However the bonus challenge is not as interesting. The Pokemon you can try and catch at the end of a Mega Raid is a normal Pokemon. In a Legendary raid, you get the chance to catch a rare and powerful Pokemon. Thing is, a Legendary is worth more than a Mega Pokemon, and people who do these raids probably already have enough of, for example, the Kanto Starters. They don’t need any more. And once you have enough to mega evolve a Pokemon once, you can then walk said Pokemon and regain your Mega Candy with ease.

Sure, you could argue that the ability to get a shiny from a Mega Raid is fun. But it’s often a lot better when you catch the basic Pokemon, because the Pokemon from raids will only ever have inferior moves, unless it’s a part of some event. But even then, the chances of getting a shiny from a Mega Raid are low anyway. Much, much lower than the chance for a shiny Legendary.

They should be solo-able

The problem with Mega Raids is that they are mostly the same as level 5 raids. In fact, some Mega Raids are harder than Legendary raids, because of the massive stat boosts they get. But also, I think something else is missing from Mega Pokemon overall. There’s no real bonding process between a Pokemon and its Trainer in Pokemon GO. You just force-feed a Pokemon some candy and they become a Mega for 8 hours. In the main games, you level up a specific Pokemon, get a magical bracelet and go adventuring for your Pokemonite Mega stones. Sure, they mostly only mega evolve in battle, but it feels a bit more personal than Pokemon GO’s version of Megas.

Oh well. Maybe Z-Moves or Dynamax will be more personal. I doubt it though…