Dynamax Raids are Weird

Funnily enough, the one thing I find closest to Pokemon GO in Pokemon Shield is the raid battle system. As in, both games have raids. That similarity is in name only though, because raid work differently in both games, and you can only solo some raids in Pokemon GO, not the majority of them in Pokemon Shield, and GO raids require a lot of tapping, while Shield/Sword raids require taking turns. You also have a timer on both. Pokemon GO has an obvious timer that ticks down, but Shield has a limited number of turns before you are kicked out.

In Pokemon GO, raids are incredibly simple. You join up with whoever is nearby, send out some remote raid invites, then select a team of Pokemon whose type is super effective against the raid boss. Once the countdown timer finishes, the raid starts and everyone taps on their screen as much as possible, using charge attacks whenever we can, all of us attacking at the same time. Once the boss is defeated, you try and catch it. As long as you have enough people, any raid can be done with speed and ease. Evolving a Mega Pokemon speeds things up, but overall, there’s no major mechanics.

Don’t mention dodging though. Dodging attacks has always been hit or miss.

In Pokemon Shield, a Dynamax boss has more mechanics. Everyone brings one Pokemon and you, the other players and the boss all take turns to do their attacks. But to make things artificially harder, we get random barriers that prevent the boss from taking damage. So you have to waste 1-2 turns to get rid of that barrier. Only for it to happen again like a minute later.

I’ll be honest though, I haven’t played with other actual people. I’ve just done these raids with the random NPCs the game adds.

But the NPCs use such strange Pokemon.

I really don’t get the choice of NPC and Pokemon here. They are all people that you’d stumble across in your gym challenge story, but they always have some weird Pokemon that don’t do much. Seeing Togepi in a Dynamax raid is a common occurrence! And the Togepi can sometimes be one of the BETTER team members! Other Pokemon I regularly see are Pikachu, Eevee, Wishiwashi, Jolteon and Torkoal, with the occasional Snorlax, Howlucha or Salazzle thrown in for good measure. The NPCs would be fine if they picked Pokemon who at the very least had effective moves against a boss, but no, I’ve seen plenty of of Jolteons in ground-based raids.

The worst one though is probably Solrock. They spend 2-3 turns buffing themselves, then end up dying. At least the Snorlax attempts to use Counter, even if it fails on the regular. That Solrock though is just wasting everyone’s time, doubly so because Dynamax Pokemon repeatedly CANCEL all our stat changes.

You kinda HAVE to Dynamax right at the start

One thing I have noticed, at least with NPCs, you can’t just hold on to your Dynamax. The ability to Dynamax is actually shared between you and the rest of your team, but if you go first and don’t Dynamax your Pokemon, you’ll have no choice but to wait until it gets back to you. Which often doesn’t happen because you only have 10 turns to beat the raid boss.

Frankly, I think there is some kind of strategy to these (essentially solo) Dynamax raids, but you won’t see any tactics unless you’re playing with others.

Now that I think about it though, there’s one more thing that both raids have in common. Once you defeat the boss, they shrink down and you can catch them. Maybe Pokemon GO has been unwittingly using Dynamax energy for years. Well, of course not, but that’d be quite the twist if it was true…