60 Raids for a Master Ball – Was It Worth It?

So I’ve finally completed the Master Ball timed research. It’s taken me around about two months, but I finished it with time to spare. The hardest task by far was to win 60 raids. However, was this research worth it? Was it worth spending raid passes, both free and premium? Well, kinda…

First off, 60 raids is too many raids. If you want to do the research without spending money, you have to do a raid every day for, well, two months. Which is basically what I did. I did spend quite a few premium raid passes on a Guzzlord Raid Hour, but those were all bought with coins that I had earned from gyms. There was no way I was going to spend money on this research. What’s more upsetting is that there will be a paid-for research to get a Master Ball later on in the season, ‘just in case’ people don’t manage to complete the 60 raids. Seriously, all the other tasks are pretty easy, except maybe doing 150 research tasks, which does require more effort than most. Still, even then, research tasks are generally easy to do, especially if you keep the crap ones like “make 5 nice throws” for some pokeballs or whatever.

At least my 60th raid was something good. I did a Shadow Machop raid, and actually got a 3* shadow Machop with 15 Attack. Which is pretty damn nice, considering that the IVs on Pokemon from Shadow Raids have base stats of 6/6/6, rather than the standard 10/10/10 for normal raids. Funnily enough, I evolved the Machop straight away, and those two evolutions (Machoke and Machamp) earned me the Platinum Medal for evolving Pokemon. Which is nice.

After that raid, I completed the timed research and obtained my second Master Ball. Which had the same animation my first Master Ball had. What is also nice is that the massive panel for the timed research is finally gone, and I no longer need to scroll down for 10 minutes to see what events are going on and when they end. You really should be able to minimize the boxes in the Today section, as timed research and collection challenges really do take up too much room.

But the problem is, I haven’t used my first Master Ball. In fact, thanks to finishing the timed research, I now have two Master Balls, that I can use on whatever I want. This is actually quite a big deal, because the main games in the Pokemon series only ever give you one per game. The whole point is that you need to be really careful and only use the Master Ball on something big and important, like a legendary Pokemon. There are ways of getting more in the main games, but they generally involve cheating. My brother actually once got a Master Ball from a Wondertrade, on a clearly hacked in shiny Machamp. But generally the Master Ball is kinda just given to you. In Pokemon GO on the other hand, you have to earn it via long research.

So what will I use my Master Balls on? I don’t know. Considering I still haven’t used my first Master Ball, I got no idea. I’ll probably use it on a hundo legendary, because I don’t want to waste it on a 1* Galarian birb.

Was this all worth it in the end? I think so. Having two Master Balls is pretty fucking rad. Even if I’ll never use them. Still, this timed research was tough, and I wouldn’t have done it if I couldn’t have done it for free, and didn’t live in the middle of town with plenty of gyms nearby. I just wish that the 1* raids were so much better. I regret spending raid passes on shadow Meowth and Pineco. Didn’t even get any shinies either, which sucks.

Oh well. At least I’m now doublely prepared, should I ever stumble across a perfect IVs Legendary Pokemon…