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Back to Ho-Oh

We went on for a bit about Ho-Oh and what counters will be good for him when he has the charge move from hell; Solar Beam (SoB).

After running some sims I found some interesting results.

First off, so few mons that can resist SoB actually produce damage.

Realize the problem that we are dealing with here. This thing is basically a Lugia stat wise with an attack stat considerably stronger than Dragonite. If like me you are often in trouble with 10 raiders for Lugia think about the base need for 15 or so with good counters. That's crazy.

Here's the catch though. The only thing I found that survives SoB and does good damage is Dragonite (And of course the yet to be released Zapdos).Many of the things that resist or take no extra damage like Gyarados die at SoB. So does Golem. So using a Gyarados is doing less damage but also dying. This goes for a lot of mons. Even Tyranitar kind of pitifully pecks away with bite before MAYBE getting off an SE by the skin of his teeth but probably not in reality to be honest. Tyranitar (I know this is hard to believe) does better against SW since the damage he takes allows him to get off SE a little earlier and thus more comfortably.

I ran sims with level 38 attackers and no dodging.

Fwiw on Dragonite, he didn't just make it through SoB, he went on to drop multiple extra Outrages. And since it was set to "no dodging" this means the dodge bug not automatically take you like the others so if he dodges SoB (not very hard to do) he might continue even further than my sim.

For some reason I did not see him listed as a counter for Ho-Oh at all though.

Zapdos is the only other mon I hit that goes through SoB and outputs huge damage. Of course we all knew he would be a monster in this scenario.

I welcome any conversations or other sims run. I myself was surprised at these results.

Asked by JHVS7 years 7 months ago

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Before questioning whether the dogs would release with/before Ho-Oh, I take it Raikou wouldn't survive? 22 more defense but receives 1.0x damage instead of the non-stab'd NVE .71x Zapdos eats

Also what about lv39 attackers instead of 38?

I just ran a sim on that. Every time, if it has SW he makes it. No sim had him going through SoB if Ho-Oh has ES.

Edit:I've been running 38 because that's where mine are and the discussion was around my personal plan with what I had. But I doubt many of the mons in question jump some break point in that one level that changes much.

Gotcha ~ and by "makes it" do you mean makes it through the first solar beam without dodging?

Right. That is the bar that few mons seem to be able to jump in the sims.

Awesome! Good to know, thank you man

i'm not seeing a lot of options for solar beam. Start earlier into the raid countdown and save potions to show people their mistakes. When casuals get into tough battles, instead of battling harder, they typically take it easier. My app crashes a lot, so I'm not going to do many of these battles if I'm the strongest player there (and not 12-15 raiders). Best thing being, I have 4 Dragonites

I just ran a sim with a Snarl/Wild charge Archanine and he does pretty well. He does survive SoB and deals good damage with WC. Not in that top tier but certainly viable for the lineup if you are going to need to run 8-10 mons like I most likely will and already have one.

Level 38 as well I guess?

Yes.

Good post.

Did you Also do some more odd alternatives? Dark/electric arcainine and Charizard?

Working through some ideas. I'll run a more comprehensive set tomorrow when I have a PC at hand.

Note the post I made about Archanine above so far he seems to be the only middle of the road one I've hit. Not the damage of Zapdos but he does have some survivability through that first SoB and does respectable damage.

Curious on Charizard as well

Good suggestion.

Charzard does indeed survive. However, with WA/OH he doesn't do great damage as OH is resisted. I'm not going to bother running the legacy Dragon moves etc because without looking I know they won't be much better or at best they will be similar. He appears to do about 15% less damage that the before mentioned Archanine while living no longer. So I'm not sure it's a great option. Not a bad one mind you but not great.

Edit: Not great if you have other options. We may be talking about having to go very deep in your stash to die and come back for this particular raid boss. In fact I doubt 1/20 trainers will have a better option for the 8th spot. The not great really relates to investing. If you already have one in the 30s he may be a good one for you.

Good analysis. Do you feel that Zapdos is better than Raikou? I wanted to power up one, I personally feel that Raikou, in general, is better than Zapdos.

Edit: Just read this from Niantic its page:

it could be worthwhile to hold out on investing in Zapdos with Raikou feasibly on the horizon, contesting its seat as the GOAT Electric-type DPS

In this case yes, Zapdos is clearly better. He always makes it to the second SoB before dying. Depending on the quick move Raiku dies with the first SoB.

But this may only be true clear advantage on this particular raid and with this particular moveset.

Could you investigate if the same holds for a level 30 Zapdos, please? In that case I might consider investing in one.

Unfortunately I only have 1 day to catch a proper Zapdos before going to my next trip.

A lv 30 Zap will die respectably close to the second SoB but won't make it.

A lv 30 Raiku will never survive the first SoB. He died in six straight sims I just ran.

Your question is how often will you face this mon that isn't even released yet with this particular moveset? No one knows. Heck his moves could change before release or any number of things could change.

I will say this and it's just my opinion. Zap is so good and he and Raikou are so close that I will feel no shame in my Zaps that are powered. Plus we have no idea when that will happen. In many cases Raikou may be a bit better but it's not like Zap won't be a killer too.

How about dodging only the quick moves after the first SoB?

That could make a bit of difference in a few of those "surviving" mons.

But I'm feeling kind of lazy after a couple hundred sims.

My guess is that you will wind up with similar DPS or a decent net gain if you get off an extra charge, maybe 10% at the very max. How this could Sheppard them as options is of minimal worth for discussion as they are such a small group of mons overall.

If you want to do it I would love to see your results though. The problem is I can't program "don't dodge" then "only dodge after the charge". I can crunch the tough relative numbers but they land about where I said (I did look into it when running the first sims).

Have you tried Lugia? Probably Hydropump will be the best option.

He is running nearly half the damage of most of these options I've mentioned. He does survive even the second SoB but unless you have 15 trainers running high dps stuff a flock of Lugia will result in the clock winning. Unlike these other bosses we have seen it does not appear that anchoring is a very solid plan in this case. Maybe in super coordinated groups of 15, maybe. But for most, it won't work.

What website er you using? Could run analysis myself instead of bothering you. x

Pokebattler.

Click on the combat log after running sims to get a better idea of what is going down.

So basically, other than Blissey/Snorlax, the Dragon and the yellow bird are the only things that can survive solar beams?

Other things may survive. As I said Moltres survives one SoB. Lugia survives. Others can too I imagine but like Blissey or Snorlax aren't relevant because in most areas time will kill everyone and you'll get nothing.

Honestly from running these sims here's the feel I get.

Let's say you are in a great area where 15 trainers will show.

10 of them will often have 4 or so optimal counters.

In this case I would consider those Dragonite, Zapdos, Golem with a few others being comparable.

You. Might barely stand a chance. You'll need folks to die and come back. You'll need folks to also run less optimal stuff around you that will die and have them come back.

Snorlax and Blissey can sink the entire endeavor as they negate the DPS others will be dying to do.

In short, except in the best of areas, Ho-Oh with SoB will be a bloodbath. And there's no simple move you can make to prevent that. It is the first one we will face that is in all scenarios a group effort. The raids we are doing now with 5 or so experts with finely crafted rosters will not bring the other 10 to glory.

To add to this, I wanted to see how many Zaps my core group of 10 would need to max to make the other 5 or so trainers that may show up matter less. We would all need between 2-3 lv 38 maxed Zaps. Each.

Not going to happen.

With 10 goid trainers you dint need to vover 5 minutes, more like 3.
From a quick look (so no drill down into combat log) at pokebattler, using lvl 30 mons(so no maxed golems, but lvl 30), 3 golems, 2 zapdos, 2 jolts, 2 tyra, 2 dragonites should do. And I find this list to be easy to have for a good mid 30 trainer. I think this list will be enogh even for 7 trainers.

How about Magneton?

That hp tho!

True true. Im desperate.

He operates like most things that die at the first SoB. Does good damage does not survive SoB. So you can really define these mons by their attack stats. They won't produce the damage of Golem but they will do reputable damage at 1.4 and a decent attack stat. Once again not a bad option once you've run out of mons that have a clear lead in either DPS or a mix of DPS and survivability.

So it looks like a Kamikaze style of play? Ignore Its solar beam and pour high DPS+SE and just accept you risk loosing 11 mons?

Yes. In most areas, mine included, that's all you can really do.

There are two types of mons for this. The ones I mentioned in the OP that do comparable damage and survive, and the vast majority that die at the first SoB. Golem is of course the king of the suicide options, while many others that are SE with good attack stats operate about the same.

Im guessing this will hit equally hard to cities. In my city We are extremely disorganized since we don't (need to) talk but just press join. Sure 17 players in the lounge at any point the first 1,5h but 6 players go with the auto select line up and don't know they can rejoin. My latest Moltres raid we went from 15 to 6 players.

Is the move set for a raid always the same?

I.e. If it does a solar beam can't just everybody run. Restart and do the raid again and it will have another charge move?

It will have the same moves every time during the same raid.

i have come to like my RB golems more then my SE golems in raids anyway.
But considering only say 1/3 of the trainers that show at raids are 35 + and have the corresponding deep rosters it's going to be tough.
I suspect it'll get tried once or twice and then someone will have to sacrifice a pass to learn the moveset before organizing the numbers and we'll just have to skip SoB raids.

One other neat suicide mon.

Sudowoodoo.

His terrible attack stat is completely offset by the fact at lv 38 he easily always gets off a SE. He's much better than many 1.4 options with better built in higher ATT stats. I won't run comparative sims until tomorrow but I found this an interesting outcome.

One small problem, I don't know of anyone who will power up sudo to lvl 38, even lvl 30 is a stretch unless you are lucky enough to catch a wild one.

Absolutely. It's not a small problem; it's a huge one.

But under the parameters of the sim it's worth mentioning. I could run lower levels (all mons at say, lv 32) and results may be very similar. Or at 30. It will all hinge on getting a SE off or not in the end.

So fwiw I ran him at 30.

He always gets SE if run first.

So if your mons are in general topping out around 30 and you have a wild caught Sudo, he will outperform many, many mons in the suicide role for this mon with this specific moveset.

I had suspected for a while that Sudowoodo was underrated as a raid boss counter. He's worth a look for anyone who doesn't have 6 double-rock golems at L30+ (not only to use against Ho-oh). Sure, he'll faint quick; but that's what revives are for.

What makes him work here is that it's pure attack and SE. In the suicide group everything faints at the same time.

Yep, at first SoB :).

So basically, if Ho Oh has SB, I'm screwed. My raid group sounds a lot like yours though our top group doesn't sound as strong as yours. Pretty sure if I go in on one with SB I'll be saying RIP raid pass.

In all fairness, it also depends on how much you will get screwed over by the dodge bug.

In above analysis we focus on Pokemon who are able to survive at least on SoB, such that the dodge bug is less apparent.

In short, make sure to inform your fellow team mates on the following two points:
1. Which Pokemon are good attackers against Ho-oh, but more importantly
2. They are going to die and have to rejoin with non-garbish Pokemon. That is, inform them on reviving their squad or using B-options against Ho-oh.

Most people are afraid of dying, not only in real life, but I guess that should be the tactic versus this raid boss.

This is correct.

If the dodge bug gets fixed things will change. But if it isn't, yes, it will be hell to take him with SoB and even a competent group of 12-15 depending on your area. As I said before, I don't think 10 can carry the other 5 unless they have just flat out incredible rosters (a ton of Golems, a strong mix of Golems and Zaps etc).

I guess I will have two squads ready. Starting out with the B-squad and when Ho-oh has crossed its 50% health (considering the remaining 50% will take more time as people die and will rejoin with trash) I'll switch to my A-squad to hopefully still get that damage bonus. Something like that.

This is generally the best way to play IMO...

However, for a lot of people, with a large group, you will probably lag so it'll suck to swap out either way.

My phone lags and running and swapping can take 30 seconds seriously (I just saw my vid today that took that long...)...

Anyone see that duo Moltres vid where the guy swaps out in 7 seconds?!?!?...

That said, the best way to play is probably not to faint since the faint screen is longer and keep all your Blisseys, Rhydons, Chanseys knocked out and just swap in your ideal team when you run...

This may take a few practice runs to see what the system auto selects to see what it picks, then "replace" what they pick and when you leave and come back, it picks the same ones for you again.

Also go and keep knocking out the ones the system likes to pick by default (like Wobbufett sometimes too)...

I'm partially biased in this.

iPhone 6+ and Verizon. For my area I'm frequently under 10 seconds on a swap.

I've never tried this strategy before, but if you sort your 2 squads on name and let them be your top 12, I am sure you are able to swap out rather quickly.

What you are saying regarding leaving is particularly true. Don't faint, but leave the raid just before fainting as the animation of fainting takes longer than manually leaving.