Tier 3 Raid Ranking
If we could make a rank from the easiest to the hardest one to solo at lv3 raids, how would it looks like?
Answers
I completely agree with the above assessment if team composition isn't a problem, however, it will also likely depend on what is available to you. For instance, my guess is that people living in desert biomes might find Arcanine easier to solo than Vape since they have more access to Geodude than Exeggs.
I believe the answer may be different for each player as it heavily depends on the team you already have at hand when you embark on your quest to solo the Big 5.
For me, vaporeon and arcanine were easiest and alakazam the most difficult. Machamp was more difficult than the former two as I had relied on specialist attackers under the old gym system and therefore was short of psychos when I began level 3 solos (other than that other fella who pretended to have had "an army of powered up alakazams long before raids were a thing" and who had, in addition, allegedly beaten raid boss Alakazams with such ease that he didn't even remember how often he had done it and with which mons. Yeah, right...). Gengar was a by-product on the way to Alakazam.
Going to echo this. Also, I'm one of those folks who are of the belief that Level 3 Raids have gotten harder as of late. I've tried to solo a Machamp and Flareon in the past 2 weeks, barely beat the Machamp and didn't beat the Flareon - even though I've Soloed Machamps prior to the introduction of Legendaries pretty easily.
So, prior to the introduction of Legendaries, here is my list. (Easiest at the top)
1) Arcanine:
-I beat 3 with ease, wasn't able to catch a single one. They're a big reason I stopped doing Level 3 raids for Pokémon I didn't actually need.
2) Machamp
-The first Machamp I soloed I got extremely lucky. The next two were more difficult, but I still succeeded. I tried to solo a Machamp a week ago and it took me 3 tries AND a lot of luck before I beat it.
3) Gengar
-Lots of variability with Gengar for me; I beat 1 ridiculously easily (to the point where I considered putting in a Bug Report because of how much damage I was doing - I was sure there was someone else in the battle I couldn't see. Either that or FutureSight was doing 2.8x damage instead of 1.4x damage) but a the rest were challenging. I had to create a specialized team for Gengar before I could reliably take one down.
4) Flareon
-I took down one rather easily in the first two weeks of Raiding since I had 6 Vaporeons that were level 34+. I didn't even get through 4 of my Vapes before winning, with about 30 seconds left on the clock. I tried again last week and failed miserably - the closest I came to defeating the Flareon was getting it down to 1/3 health or so. I still didn't go through all my Vapes, but they were doing FAR less damage - to the point where I'm honestly not sure if it was a glitch or not. (You know how when you're battling and you take off a chunk of health with a Charge move, how the bar shows how much you've done by the bar changing colour for a half second then takes that amount off? That wasn't happening for any of my charge moves. The Flareon's health bar was going down, but it wasn't changing colour at all when I hit it with a Charge move.)
5) Alakazam
-For shit and giggles I tried one when Raids first started, and I was slaughtered. I didn't even get it down to half health before I lost all my Pokemon. Tried a half dozen times and same thing every time. My wife and I could barely tag-team it. Tried again a month ago and got destroyed again, even though I had 2 T-Tars who were Level 30 and the Alakazam did not seem to have Focus Blast - though at least the health bar of the Alakazam change colours this time... barely. Maybe if I can get a team of 6 Level 34+ Bite/Crunk T-Tars AND find an Alakazam without Focus Blast, I MIGHT be able to take it down solo.
N/A) Vaporeon and Jolteon
-I've got 10+ of each, all at level 28+ (I've caught 666 Eevee's as of today) so I haven't tried to solo either. My wife and I, using daughter's account (who is 5 and only plays when we've dragged her to a Legendary raid. She used to love to catch Pokemon but got bored really, REALLY fast when she had her own character. So she has next to nothing useful.) took down a Jolteon pretty easily, so I might be able to take one down without much trouble but I haven't actually tried. Never tried a Vaporeon at all, not even pre-Legendary Raids.
Personally, I don't believe that T3s have gotten harder outright (though I will admit I wasn't in a position to try the first few weeks). But I will say that the difficulty level can range quite a bit even in the same raid block.
Yesterday, I took on a C/HS machamp (I had beaten the moveset 2 weeks ago no problem) but this time it seemed every 3 seconds I was getting nailed with a heavy slam. Needless to say I failed that attempt, so I healed up went back in and the HS seemed to come slightly less frequently more along the distribution I'm used to (I know I wasn't getting nailed back to back like the first time). I finished with 13 seconds left with the same team.
As for the flareon, there must have been someone in there with you cuz 30 seconds left is a TON of time and with 200+ def, flareon should never go down that easy. The only successful flareon solo I know of required four lv39 100% RT/SE golems which have 7% more DPS than WG/HP vape and he finished with 1 second left.
Exactlly my thoughts and experiences. I’m now 99% sure that every Vape soloing Lareon report is due to the trainer not realising he had a 2nd trainer alongside. I’ve tried Flareon from first week and was obvios to me that Golems were faster. Back then I had lvl 37-38.5 vapes and golems. Now I have 3 golems maxed, one at lvl 37.5, 2 maxed vapes and still not one Flareon solo (did not yet tried a FS/overheat or fs/fb ones as the canadian triner who did it).
How easy is a non wild charge Arcanine or even one with? I am thinking about trying out with this team:
Vaporeon WG/HP 2844 CP (15 Attack IV)
Vaporeon WG/HP 2729 CP
Golem RT/SE 2638 CP (15 Attack IV)
Possible next 3 depending on wild charge or not:
Gyarados B/HP 2915 (15 Attack IV)
Rhydon MS/SE 2767
Dragonite DT/H 3203 (15 Attack IV)
Dragonite DT/O 2986 (15 Attack IV)
Omastar WG/RB 2071
I am afraid you still have some way to go. You will need 4-5 decent (level 32+) mons for the job. As for the mons, I found golems and hydro pump vaporeons to be most suitable for my playing style (you will need more golems than vapes though, water gun is just too weak for vapes to be the backbone of your team). Looking at the charts, rhydon should do ok as well, but in battle I found I just hate mud slap - it is slow and charges the charge move slowly as well. Berk.
So essentially I need 1 more Golem/Omastar?
Got any links to the charts? Feels like I fill the criteria off 4-5 level 32+ mons if we count Gyarados. With it I got at least 4 high IV(91%+) level 32+ mons with 2 decent "fillers".
I could powerup one of the Vaporeons to almost the same CP as the better one, but I rather save the dust. Same goes for the Rhydon/Gyarados/Omastar. Rhydon only got 78% IV, Gyarados doesnt feel that useful but got 96% IV and Omastar got a shit IV since I just evolved a high level one during the rock event.
Edit: Totally forgot about Tyranitar, I guess that is what I need and will get next.
It's possible with Level 30 pokemon- I have soloed Snarl Wild Charge Arcanine with Level 29/30 Golems, some of them had piss poor attack IVs as well so they're not 'actually' level 30:
12/15/14 2460CP
14/3/14 2420CP
12/14/8 2412CP
4/11/11 2331CP
8/1/14 2345CP
If you had a full golem roster from the rock event it's quite doable, and you can tell how much fun I had with Moltres and Zapdos :)
You are right of course, my answer was indeed a bit imprecise. What I meant to imply was that the better the mons, the less of them you will need to finish the job, and that their levels should be high-ish but do not need to be anywhere near level 39 in most cases (good atk iv provided).
The important thing imo is to try and reach the last break point for the quick move, although it does not hurt to go beyond that level if one can afford it. Increasing a top attacker's survivabilty is never a bad thing. The cost for this is just very high, so it's not the most resource-efficient modus operandi.
To give some additional guidance for arcanine: a 15 atk golem reaches the last qm break point at level 34, a 15 atk rhyorn at 33.5 and a 15 atk vape at 29. Hence my level 32+ remark.
Personally I think the last qm break point is what one should aim for, but using a higher number of slightly weaker (kill speed-wise) mons can often do the trick as well, although less comfortably. The crucial thing is using the right mon with the right move set. In most cases, even a level 39 dt/o dragonite will not hold a candle to a level 30-ish top counter.
That team team is pretty much straight off worse than mine.
Lv 33.5 RT/SE Golem (98% 15A)
Lv 33.5 WG/HP Vap (93% 15A)
Lv 31.0 WG/HP Vap (91% like 12A)
Lv 30.5 MS/SE Rhydon 78% (Like 12A as well)
Lv 33.5 DT/H Dragonite (96% IV 15A)
If outrage is preferd mine is 30.5 and got 15A as well. Only 67% IV tho.
I find the ratings really interesting, because the only one of those I have been successful with is Vaporeon (two for six - I am now beefing up my lower CP Exeggutors). I have gotten close with Machamp, but he kept lasting. I didn't think I had the right types for the others. I had four great exeggutors and two good ones, so I figured I could take on Vaporeon. I don't have but one Espeon (something I am fixing) Nx two Alakazams (can't do anything about). I have tons of Golems -geodudes were spawning all over the place here a while back. So I will try Arcanine. Does everyone use the Gamepress recommended counters?
Try all Golem squad for Arcanine. I did it with 5 Level 30 ones and was just OK. If you had higher level ones would be a breeze. A Japanese dude had some maxed golems (the one who did the 2 man Moltres) and he finished with 15 seconds to spare, with Level 30 ones like I did, I finished with 1-2s left so hope lag is in your favour.
