Hisuian Decidueye Raid Day
While they’re not technically ‘days’, considering they only last from 2pm to 5pm local time, I do like Raid Days. They disappeared for a while, during and after the main bulk of the COVID pandemic (which we are technically still in), before becoming a once-per-season thing. However, the last two seasons, we’ve seen more of them, and the current season has had one a month, for each of the Hisui starter Pokemon. February 2024 had Hisuian Decidueye, the evolution of Rowlet.
Okay, sure, we just had Rowlet Community Day back in January, but I guess they wanted to release normal Decidueye before releasing its Hisuian version. Normal Decidueye is Grass/Ghost, while the Hisui version is Grass/Fighting.
The raid day was pretty standard. Decidueye was a level 3 raid, and you got your standard 5 free raid passes. Turns out, I’ve been wrong, it’s 5 free raid passes ON TOP of your daily free pass, so you can get up to 7 free raids if you had an orange raid pass before the day of the event. There weren’t any extra bonuses outside of an increased shiny chance, and Hisuian Decidueye didn’t come with any special moves. Like previous Hisuian raid days, there was also a premium, real-world-only ticket available that supposedly gave extra chances for Rare XL Candy, as well as an additional 8 free orange passes, but from what I saw on the Silph Road, the chances weren’t great.
Defeating Hisuian Decidueye wasn’t too bad, assuming you have some… older Pokemon with legacy moves. If you have Moltres with Sky Attack, you’re good to go, even better if you have a good Shadow Moltres. Mega Rayquaza though is even better. Dragon Ascent, despite the name, is a flying type move, and flying is super effective against both Grass and Flying, meaning you essentially do triple damage.
Other options to defeat the raid boss include Psystrike Mewtwo and Fusion Flare Reshiram, but, again, they require legacy moves.
Personally, I did pretty well. I did 7 raids total, didn’t spend any premium raid passes, and managed to get 3 shinies. I also got 20 normal rare candy and 1 Rare XL Candy, which immediately went to my 100% Groudon. I did 5 of the raids on my own, one in which I ran into a random spoofer (since I was literally completely alone and there was no one around) and I invited my brother to one raid. I also only used a grand total of one revive, against a weather-boosted Psycho Cut/Aura Sphere Decidueye. My level 45 Mega Rayquaza did all the heavy lifting, and Dragon Ascent tore Decidueye apart. The one time it fainted, the boss had a slither of health left, and my 98% level 49 Noivern finished it off. Didn’t get any with particularly good stats, but, well, it kinda doesn’t matter.
Unfortunately, this Pokemon came out in a bad spot. Sure, Grass/Fighting sounds kinda cool on paper, but we already have one: Chesnaught. And Chesnaught is just way better than Hisuian Decidueye. It has a better grass move, Vine Whip, as well as the vastly superior Frenzy Plant and a great fighting type move, Super Power. Decidueye does have Aura Sphere but it takes longer to charge, and Decidueye doesn’t have as much bulk as Chesnaught does. In PvP, you want as much health as you can get, and you want to be able to get energy for your charge attacks as fast as possible. Chesnaught does both of those things better than Decidueye does, and, more importantly, is more readily available. After all, it’s an uncommon seasonal spawn, and doesn’t require a trade with a Good Friend or lower to get it into Great League CPs.
Still, it doesn’t mean that Decidueye is bad. It’s just not as good as existing Pokemon. Unfortunately, though, the Hisuian version kinda lacks great grass type moves, since it doesn’t seem to learn Frenzy Plant. Which is a bit of a missed opportunity.