Primal Kyogre Raid Day
Honestly, I love all these raid days. An event with free raid passes and a cool Pokemon. Mostly. Primal Kyogre though is one hell of a raid boss, and definitely something you need a good team with. This Pokemon hits like a truck, even if you resist water moves, doubly so if it’s raining and Kyogre is weather-boosted. While you CAN do a Primal Kyogre raid with 5 accounts, you need 5 GOOD accounts with level 35+ Pokemon and a TON of revives, especially if Kyogre has Blizzard as its charge move. Blizzard is by far the worst move because it hits most of its counters (all grass types, Zekrom, Thundurus and Zapdos) super-effectively and will still easily one-shot lower level Raikou and shadow Magnezone.
Ideally, you wanted about 7-8 people for this raid. I did one raid with 6 people (a remote raid) and we pulled it off, but we got lucky because it had Surf, which, although it charges fast and has STAB, doesn’t hit too hard and is resisted by grass types.
Heck, I managed to get into a full lobby of 20 people, and we STILL didn’t get the full 100 Primal Energy Candy. That being said, in that full raid, I saw a Conkuldurr, 2 Origin Form Palkias and my old enemy, Aggron. The local raids we did, we managed to get 16 players at most. Most of us were level 35+ but there were a few level 20-35 players, however most people brought at least proper counters, i.e. grass and electric types. That being said, I was bringing Primal Kyogre in my party, with Thunder as a charge move, so it could give a 10% boost to all the electric types that we were using. Other Megas you could have used were Mega Sceptile and Venusaur for grass types and Mega Manectric and Ampharos for electric types, but I went with Primal Kyogre because its boost would last even while other Pokemon were out, not just while it was active.
Out of our group, we had some alright luck. We only did 8 raids, I did 10 with 2 remote raid passes, and most of us got a shiny. I got a 93% (15/15/13) Kyogre and a couple of us got weather-boosted 98% ones. Annoyingly, the weather boost disappeared halfway through the first hour. Although there are only 7 gyms where I normally play (plus a few more if you are willing to walk), because the raids reset and restarted every hour, we didn’t run out of raids to do. This is a GREAT change, and it means people in general can do more raids, even if they have limited gyms.
I’ll be honest though, the raid rewards sucked ass. I was getting basically fuck all golden berries, hardly any potions, a handful of revives and nonsensical bundles of rare candy. I only got a single Rare Candy XL, which I immediately spent on my Wonderblades perfect Groudon, and most of my rare candy went towards Palkia and Dialga, because I need to power up my Origin Form ones. In one raid, I got ONE hyper potion and 3 revives, for a raid where 5 of my team fainted. While I did get a few Silver Pinaps, I NEEDED the golden berries to catch Kyogre, and ended up with way less than what I started with, even if I did manage to save some berries by catching a shiny. Because Primal Kyogre takes a while to bring down, you also get less Pokeballs and less Primal Energy. This REALLY sucks because you’ll probably need 5 raids to get enough mega candy to Primal Reverse a Kyogre for the first time, and Kyogre is a genuinely really hard Pokemon to catch. While I (somewhat miraculously) managed to catch every Kyogre I raided for, most of my group lost at least one or two. We were getting about 13-15 Pokeballs a raid, far less than most raid days.
Still, I now have 1200 Primal Kyogre mega candy, so I can at least spend some mega candy here and there rather than waiting 7 days for each cooldown, to speed things up. I also got a nice 120 XL Candy, which I’ll probably split evenly between my already level 40 Kyogre and my lucky shiny one that’s been Primal’d. Kyogre is the best water type around, so it’s definitely worth powering some up.
Overall, it was fun, and I got to chat with a bunch of friends, but in all honesty, I’m more looking forward to Primal Groudon next weekend. Not only will the raids be easier due to a double weakness, but I am desperate for XL Candy for my own Groudon. Plus, with Shadow Groudon coming out soon, I’m gonna need all the candies I can get.