Re: JHVS's Advocation of Using Highest DPS Counters
In the post (https://pokemongo.gamepress.gg/q-a/your-team-against-ho-oh-sob) where OP asked which Pokemon to use to raid Solar Beam Ho-Oh, many (me included) downvoted the Sebhes's answer - "Omastar, Golem Regardless of move set Ho-OH". JHVS, however, later pointed out that "Y'all downvote the guy that will run optimal counters and die to gift you this mon?" and "If not (raid groups are not 20) you're an ass for running this trash. Other folks will run optimal counters and die and come back to gift you this mon."
I can't believe that as someone as famous as JHVS, a well-known and respected GP user, took such a strange stand. I can understand what he's thinking - everyone using Golems/Omastars and taking out Ho-Oh before everything faints. Unfortunately, it won't work. Less than 10% are using supreme counters in reality. More than 30% are using auto-selected Blissey/Snorlax. And it's not always that they choose to do so - it could be last-second joining or laggy phones.
Therefore, if you choose a full Golem team, it's 100% sure that you'll faint before the raid is done. Then what? You max revive the team, select, and re-join? For slow phones, this painful process could take ~30 seconds. And after you join back, the raid will be close to ending and good luck to your personal damage bonus.
The question whether using full Golem yields higher DPS remains if the time needed to revive, select and rejoin is taken into consideration. With the alternative choices, including Zapdos, Gyarados, and Dragonite, you'll survive almost twice longer (hence no need to go out, revive and rejoin) and still much better DPS than other options.
Which is more optimal? The remains to be seen. I'm here to say just one thing - using Zapdos, Gyarados or Dragonite is not "an ass".
Answers
This is a selfish asshole move.
It happened to me the other day, where I was the last left fighting when everyone else fainted first.
I was the only one to go back in and solo'd the last 15-20% of Moltres, and got it with a few seconds to spare.
The funny bit...I got max dps, because they left enough of the boss for me to get my dps back up again.
First 6 were all golems...next 6 was 4 Tyranitar and 2 DNites - didn't heal, just went back in for the kill
Basically, if you do this then you are not much more than a leech.
Sure, some will claim it is a clever thing to do - unless of course it costs the kill. If everyone did this, then sometimes you would just miss out.
It is a fine line between being 'clever' and a selfish leeching scumbag.
you just choose your team situationally. it's worked for me a couple of times now that i have named my roster (for moltres currently) so they are top of the list. you can usually know if you are going to faint half way through your roster. So then i make a decision to exit to lobby at say mon 4 or 5 heal and re-enter so plan on using 8 or 9 mons and make sure the ones i am using twice are my best.
In a larger group I just make sure i anchor with resilient stuff. But mainly I just try to know the people i am raiding with.
I don't think it's selfish or all the negative things you state...
I've been in plenty of raids where I'm 38+, most everyone else is < 25 with < 200 battles total (a lot of us are 5000+ with training)...I do max DPS with optimal counters (usually Lugia raids), everyone gets knocked out and even if we all come back in, my guys last longer so I come back in later than evenyone else....
and even on the dominant team, get 0 extra balls for damage and team damage...
You get 5 balls (which is really only 4 balls due to last ball bug)...so for all your hard work and time/investment in your team, you got squat...
I even would be perfectly OK if people just sat out to save their damage bonus too...BUT....
a more optimal way to play (and what I do now) is just swap out midway after 2 or 3 is knocked out depending on your raid group...To save time, keep all your Blisseys, Chanseys, Wobbufets, even Rhydon's fainted and when selecting your team for the first round, REPLACE what the system has selected for you so all those Golems, maxed out Tyranitars that it picked, put something else in and glass cannons up front...
Legendarys (even though I throw near 100% great/curved/golden razz) has a low catch rate so blame/hate Niantic, but not the player just trying to catch possibly their 1st Legendary...
Most of the time, it's not even that close (I've NEVER been in a close Moltres raid)...and only Lugia is tough.
I'm glad if everyone could keep their damage bonus and Moltres is too easy of a raid boss to be hating on people wanting to get more than 5 balls...(really 4).
For Moltres, since two players can take it down, the problem is not that bad. But we are talking about Ho-Oh and it is coming.
Trust me, there will be huge DPS gaps between different options of attackers. And survivability as well. I think things will get really interesting when Ho-Oh comes out. It's expected to see a lot of rants.
Solar Beam Ho-Oh will be tough, if it's Fire Blast or Brave Bird, your Golems will be perfect...Just go in with the usual Vapes (how many depends on how many raiders), and swap out to your Golems, Tyranitar when 2-3 faint...
I honestly actually felt bad that some people in our raid group recently didn't catch the mon due to not doing much/any damage (low level, non-optimal counters) when they got 5 balls (actually 4) and we got 11 balls...(+3 personal, +3 team)...Of course, they probably wouldn't have even won, but still, this is more of a collecting game now so even I have less hate for the casual player amazingly...
Makes catching raid bosses very very hard with 4 chances (~50% assuming great/curved/grazz)...
This kinda mirrors (albeit to a lesser extent) what problems come up during battles against Moltres with a smaller group (saying like 4-5). There is no way that a 4-5 group can (given the dodge bug) complete Moltres with the first 6 mon.
I made the suggestion to use 'the secondaries' first (e.g. Vaporeon, Gyarados, which in this context they are second rate vs Moltres), let them deliberately faint (no dodge hydro pump the fire chicken), then go back straight away with the tyranitars and golems which come from the autoselect for the second wave.
Having the first wave of 'sacrifice' mons that faint quickly then auto-selecting the actual best counters is not the worst idea. For Ho-Oh you'd be talking about having your Golem suicide squad first, then re-entering with your Zapdos/gary/dragons.
I'm not sure if this is what the idea that JHVS is talking about but I think the above makes total sense, and allows you for a chance for a damage bonus AND not risk unable to beat a boss, given a smaller group.
Of course, when the numbers go 15+, then any pokemon selection is irrelevant.
That's exactly what I'm referring to (in various forms for the smaller raid groups) and something we have done with success here.
Yesterday our first three Moltres raids were 4,4, and 3 trainers. With three we all had to purposefully die out and then renter. For 4 we had a super strong group so one or two would die (not me) and renter. With four I never died the first two fights and we won with over 30 seconds both times. I ran 4 Golems and 2 Ttars. Also of note the Golems with RB work a lot better than the SE ones thanks to this garbage we know as the dodge bug.
Edit to add: One thing we did to speed this up was to put an * at the start of the name for the exact counters we want. That means if you're in alphabetical sorting they are always at the very top. No searching in the heat of battle
Putting your second rate mons (e.g. using Vapes and Gary for the first wave) then quitting before your 6th mon faints is even faster, as you will skip the 'all your pokemon have fainted' screen, and also jump back straight into the battle with the autoselect (which will have chosen golems+ttars)
Unless you are blessed with 12 golems+ttars of course you can use all of them in the 2 waves, without the need for vape/gary. I only have 9 of them combined.
Yes. I'm at 10. And we sorted that way but the two and out felt a little complicated for some present let alone the explaination of why. I mentioned it but l saw eyes glaze over so I didn't press it or do it as I think I would have gotten sideways glances like I was doing something sneaky to cheat them somehow. So I just dropped it.
Yeah I think it depends on who's in the lobby, did a moltres raid with 8 that was too close for comfort for that many people! 5 were <Lv 30, a Lv 38,33, and me Lv 35. I set 3 golems, 2omastar and trex. I died pretty quickly and autoselect had 4Rhydons. I got the +3 damage cuz the 38 survived too long with his first six. The others were never going to of much help, I saw a noctowl at one point. Had I put my blissey in slot 6 thinking "we got this with 8" we likely would not have finished him the first go and I wouldn't have gotten as high a damage bonus.
Yes.
But understand I pointed out that was the case where I am and we would be lucky to have 10 most times.
The point being none of us will get him if we do that.
It may work perfectly well and better than all other options in high traffic areas. Just not mine. I don't want people in low traffic areas to run and power up a Kingdra thinking they're helping their team get the mon then running out of time.
Add to that I'm not talking about Dragonite, Zapados, or even Gyarados as they put out good or great damage as well as resist in some cases. I'm talking about kingdra or Lugia etc. These mons are basically Snorlaxes in current raid battles. Big difference
He's not a bad example. His water moves are SE too. But in comparison to other options you mentioned he's down the list quite a bit. And I doubt with the bug he even survives better than other mons which is the real catch. With the dodge bug he's getting wiped by the second SoB, period. Quite possibly the first. So he is no better or worse than all the mons with a higher ATT stat and water based (and there are many). I don't hate him but I wouldn't recommend spending dust on him. My point was that taken all of that does the guy who is going to run suicide Golems to ensure his team gets the mon (and undoubtably die) deserve double digit downvotes while I'd argue the guy suggesting Kingdra will do the same with less damage and he is getting upvotes? We have to craft our team for our areas. Players who do either are likely doing just that and I diwnvoted none of them under the assumption that's what they're doing. Not the Kingdra or Lugia guy. Not the Porygon2 guy. Not the Golem guy either. That's all I'm saying.
The problem of using golems, or any of the double weakness Mons is that with an exception of the first slot, they are likely to die before firing their first charge move, so they will also suck dps wise. I would definitely put a golem in the first slot as a glass cannon and there is nothing wrong with using ttars and vapes as they can probably tank one SoB, so the dodge bug won't get.
I'm not sure even a Ttar can tank one SoB from Ho-Oh depending on when he drops it and how much damage you've taken from his quick moves etc.
And I promise my RB Golems are dropping charge moves. As I said numerous times in this thread it's all very trainer dependent by area. Folks will have to figure all of that out through trial and error.
Edit to add I just ran a sim with my level 38 RB Golem. Zero dodging.
I got 3-4 off on average before SoB wiped me out.
And fwiw SoB from Ho-Oh wipes out all kinds of things even those that resist the charge.
I would like to hear or see a sim of what will outperform my RB Golem in DPS with the 3-4 charges it drops at 70 each and SE. Excluding Zapdos who probably does what can? And does it survive SoB?
Hint: As far as I can tell from sims only Dragonite puts out similar damage and survives the first SoB.
My friend, your arguments are perfect examples of attitudes that cause us to time out during raid battles. Though not taking it into extreme, your reasoning is that survivability is more important than damage. In my area, we are fighting raid bosses with a limited amount of players, therefore the amount of damage done is key (which is always the most important factor anyway). If you happen to die during the battle, suck it up and rejoin the battle.
I only found Charizard an interesting option as suggested by Lecafe88. Not that any of this matters as you stated in your previous post that:
Dodging isn't realistic since dodge bug exists in Raid Battle
It’s unlikely that any of the alternatives mentioned in the previous topic is going to survive without dodging anyway.
Tl;dr I rather fight with JHVS Golem on my side than a Houndoom, Porygon2, Arcanine, Kingdra.
But not everyone is JHVS. For most players, they don't revive. Even if they rejoin, they won't use the same team but whatever is auto-selected. Only hardcore players like us will bother to revive and probably use some nicknaming tricks to make selection faster.
Many players take 333-blue's strategy - die and wait. If that's the case, Golem Team doesn't maximize the total damage output.
It takes courage to persuade casual players to invest heavily (not just stardust but TMs as well) in Golem. It'll be much easier to convince them to invest in Gyarados, and many have already done so.
The root of this problem is the mechanic behind the raid reward system. It is rotten (rewarding free-riders) and we all know that. It's up to Niantic to fix it. Until then, we can't assume every player in the lobby to be JHVS.
Absolutely.
You need to know your raidmates. I do. They listen to me and many are great guys and gals that take instruction and we all work together to do exactly what is best for all of us. At times this includes telling folks to not rejoin; we got this and tons of other stuff. Our levels are very different as are our rosters.
To highlight this, yesterday we took Moltres with 4,4, and 3 trainers through various methods. With the 4 there was 30+ seconds left on the clock twice.Less than two hours later we had nine (9!!!!!!!) but all trainers were different. We almost timed out and only didn't because I died and came back in giving up my damage balls after running all optimal counters on the first go.
You don't even want to know what they were running. It's too sad to even say. One is a guy that is an ex spoofer with a great roster. He argues with me that Blissey is and will always be a better mon for the legendary birds than Golem. It's all he uses ever with the odd dragon at times. I have kept count and to date I've gifted him 11 legendaries he in no way earned. But I do exactly what I have to to ensure we win. Every time. Even at cost to myself.
At least that spoofer always gets +0 balls probably...
I used to think using Blissey was ok if you didn't want to rejoin/lose damage, but I think a better way is really just to swap out mid battle depending on how it's going...Use 8/9 high DPS guys and help the raid and preserve your bonus. My phone lag tons, but if you plan it where all your Chanceys, Blisseys, Wobbufet are knocked out, it should pick the right ones assuming you replaced your TOP mons in the 1st group...
It's foolish for the people to use Blissey since your damage is very very low so you are now shorting yourself of +3 damage balls assuming you are not in an uber large group...
Team imbalance makes the team bonus harder to predict, but that +3 personal, assuming you aren't too many is sorta guaranteed for smaller (5-7 sized) groups I'd guess...
Other than Lugia now, my 6 usually won't faint and Lugia is a bigger pain due to needing more trainers and having a higher chance to faint in general...(no double weakness, Hydropump will one shot most attackers, etc...)...
In fact, many players will always rejoin as very little people know that you are still able to catch the raid boss if you die, let alone get your damage balls. E.g. and based on your comment above even you, as experienced GP reader, wasn't aware of this.
Agree that they will often go with their auto selection after rejoining, because they panic. Only more reason to give out as much damage as possible during your first attempt. Therefore, I will always advice people to take Golem over Gyarados against Ho-oh.
Bottom line is that I doubt anything matters without dodging as nothing will be able to take a full solar beam anyway. Furthermore, I'm not using any Pokemap or whatever myself, so therefore I will never know the move set of Ho-oh in advance.
You can just start the battle alone, wait to ser the charge, quit. Si you will now the move. Or will be some signsin selection, like fir HPbLugia, if Tyra is missing in auto => HP on Lugia.
Btw, I agree with you, I lead in Lugia raids with at least 1 Gengar :). And my 3 maxed Gilems are in each and everylegendary raid, and will be as long as the boss has a weekness (not necessary 2) to rock :).
To clarify, I did know that if you die you can still catch the Raid Boss. What I didn't know was that when exactly is your damage contribution reset.
As for knowing the move set of Ho-oh beforehand, there may be a way: if the auto-selection picks Golems then it's highly likely that it is not a SoB one. Otherwise, it indicates a nightmare :(
As others have mentioned I don't see anything about the dodge bug in this topic post (this topic); even with dodging, Zapdos and all other more optimal counters against steel wing/solar beam variants may still get d!ck3d by the dodge bug! In this case, mons that are double weak to solar beam (omastar, golem, etc.) will still get KO'd. From personal experience I've found that the dodge bug affects my ability to an equal extent as my slowish* iPhone 5S. In these circumstances, as JHVS argued, I would gladly put in some rock types
Also you're famous JHVS!! Move outta the way T tips and Mystic, he's comin to get ya! And be the very best, that no one ever was... DUN DUN DUN to catch them is his real test, to train them, is his cause!?! He will travel across the land (earth), searching far n wide DUN DuN DUN the poh-kay-mon, to understand, the power that's inside...POKAYMON! GOTTA CATCH EM ALLLLLLLLL
I think the rock hybrids that are glass cannons against Steel wing/solar beam will still work well as say Zapdos and others that counter some of this moveset due to the fact that sooOooOoo many factors are involved!
- number of players
- how many are using blisseys and other similar low-dps mons
- Ho-Oh's moveset
- how laggy/bugg is the specifc raid
- etc.
- how many kids wait in the lobby after fainting to receive their damage bonuses
I think it's safe to say Ho-Oh will be tricky af to tackle effectively
Haha now I'm blushing lmaooo
I'm the sims I've run so far, steel wing really isn't an issue. All the mons either die at the first SoB or make it to the second (Zapdos, Dragonite, Moltres<-resisted damage though). In fact considering there's no hope once solar beam comes it actually helps some. For Golem he often got off one extra rock blast versus SW than ES. In the case of Tyranitar, resisting ES almost costs him any chance of dropping even 1 stone edge in some sims.
Of course if he doesn't have SoB it's better for your rock types for him to have ES.
