Why are Niantic Nerfing Remote Passes?

On March 30th, Niantic made an announcement regarding the future of remote raid passes. Simply put, they are increasing the price of remote passes to 195 coins, with a pack of three costing 525 coins. Even worse, they are reducing the amount of remote raids a player can do in one day, from infinite to 5. This announcement has popped up very suddenly, and the changes will occur on April 6th. Of course, no one likes any of these changes. Remote raids offer so much freedom. The changes made to remote passes are pretty damn drastic. Not only are they… [Continue Reading]

Read more

On Using The Right Counters

During the Hoenn Tour, one of the main features was doing raids. We were raiding for Groudon and Kyogre, which had reverted into their Primal forms, making them much, much more powerful. They had a  CP of about 90,000 each, which is nearly double what normal legendary Pokemon have. So, in order to defeat these monsters, we needed to use the best teams possible. Did we all do that? Well, I did. Organized teams I had separate teams for both Kyogre and Groudon. Against Primal Groudon, I used a collection of (normal) Kyogres, while using a Mega Gyarados to boost… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Elite Raids in Pokemon GO

Back before the pandemic, Pokemon GO used to have a system called EX Raids. Every month or so, players who spun certain gyms (called EX gyms) would be given a black raid pass, with a date and time printed on it. On the day, a raid would appear, and only people with EX Passes could do the raid. The raid boss was always something rare, like a Mewtwo with Shadow Ball. However, this system was scrapped, and for a while, we didn’t really have anything to replace them. Now, a couple of years later, we got a new system, called… [Continue Reading]

Read more

We should just make all passes remote passes.

Right now, I have about 15 Pokecoins in Pokemon Go. At the same time, I am kinda in the middle of nowhere. So there are no local gyms around, which means I can’t get any coins, and I definitely can’t do any raids. There is one red gym within a reasonable distance, but it not only hasn’t had good raids on it, but it’s also fiercely defended by one person. Simply put, anything gym-related is out of reach for me. No Pokecoins, no gym battles and no decent raids at all. Especially since that red gym has had no good… [Continue Reading]

Read more

An Idiot Plays Vow of the Disciple

When it comes to video games, I judge myself quite harshly. I’m not particularly good at them, and I improve very slowly. However, in Destiny 2, somehow my ineptitude goes up to 11 and I an barely hanging on. Basically, I am really, amazingly bad at Destiny 2. And, somehow, I found myself doing the newest raid, Vow of the Disciple. The main encounters were perfectly fine. Starting with essentially a payload mission, we made our way inside one of the massive dark pyramids. This one belonged to Rhulk, the first disciple of the Witness. He left the door open… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Attack Form Deoxys and a Desire for more Solo Raids

As of writing, we’ve got Deoxys in raids in Pokemon GO. But it’s not just any Deoxys, we got Attack Form Deoxys. What’s so special about that? Well, Attack Form Deoxys is one of the very, very few level 5 raids you can fight solo and actually win. The last time Deoxys’s forms were around, I didn’t have as good a team as I wanted, but also lacked the confidence. This time though, I had no such problems. Defeating a Level 5 Raid is generally hard For most Legendary raids, you will need at minimum one or two extra players.… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Pokemon I Like But Never Get To Use

When it comes to Pokemon GO, the meta doesn’t change much. In PvP, there are random cups that offer a change, but your standard PvP match will always have familiar faces, especially as you play the higher leagues. In PvE content, the meta most of the time is use six of one Pokemon and never use the default recommended stuff the game suggests. Anyway, here are some Pokemon I like, but rarely get to use in battle. Entei and Suicune The legendary beasts Entei and Suicune are really cool Pokemon. Doesn’t help that their choice of attacks just aren’t very… [Continue Reading]

Read more

3-Star Raids still kinda suck

A while back, 2-Star and 4-Star raids were removed from Pokemon GO. The remaining raid bosses were split between 1-Star and 3-Star raids, with Legendary Raids left as they are. The idea was pretty simple, Niantic wanted more people to do raids. With so much variation and choice in raids, it became a little too much for the average raider to do, well, any of them. A smaller pool of raid bosses would bring players together and do more raids. On top of all that, having so many raids meant heavily splitting the player base. 4-Star raids required a team… [Continue Reading]

Read more

GO Fest 2021 Day 2 – Raids, But Not The Ones We Wanted

For the second day of GO Fest 2021, there was a very obvious theme. A mysterious Pokemon appeared in the Pokemon GO loading screen, and mysterious portals could be seen floating above us. Rather worryingly, the sky was not a standard blue, but dark, purple and ominous. While Day 1 may have just been a bunch of biomes, Day 2 was all about raids. Lots and lots of raids. Actually, too many raids. We had constant raids pretty much all day. Five minute egg timers, and 30 minutes to do raids after they hatch. During this time though, we had… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Literally Three Hours Doing A Raid

For the first time in ages, I had enough people around to have a party of six, including Spectre, our resident person who really really knows his Destiny 2 stuff. Spectre is the sort of person who will cheese a strike and nuke the boss with ease, leaving everyone else in the dust. And that poor bugger willingly decided to lead all five newbies through not one but two raids. I think we all underestimated how long that would take. Basically, it was hell. Okay, the first raid wasn’t so bad. Leviathan, Eater of Worlds isn’t that complicated. It just… [Continue Reading]

Read more