Mewtwo has returned to Pokemon GO raids last night, but it’s return didn’t fare well with the general Pokemon GO player base. Mewtwo was expected to return as a regular Tier 5 boss, having 15000 HP and 54148 CP, and we expected that it will be slightly more difficult than Rayquaza – almost duo raid territory.
However, Niantic has other ideas in mind and Mewtwo has returned as a Tier 6 (or Tier 5+, depending of the local slang) raid boss. What does this mean? It means that Mewtwo still hatches from T5 eggs, but it has 22500 HP and 66318 CP, which makes the fight a lot more difficult. Forget about duo and trio raids, the bare minimum is 4 Trainers to even attempt this encounter (with Best Friends and all appropriate counters accounted for).
The player base has reacted as expected, with disappointment and confusion steaming from a ever growing number of salty reddit threads. “Why would Niantic do this? They must be allergic to money!” one redditor said, with another one quickly following up with the always memorable rural argument – “This is very disappointing – not sure why Niantic insist on making Mewtwo raids tougher for people, especially so for rural/semi-rural communities.” (source)
Curiously enough, I tend to agree with the sentiment: Mewtwo raids shouldn’t be this hard, not if they are unlocked as a reward for participating in a three months long competition. After all, these are supposed to be rewards for unlocking the Ultra Unlock, right? If that’s the case, then everyone should have the same chance to obtain the rewards, regardless of where you live in.
I could be wrong, but judging by our not-so-rural local community, it’s hard to find four or five people to do a raid these days. Bigger groups are almost exclusively seen during Raid Day events, with Legendary Raid Hours bringing in a slightly larger number of players than regular raids. Frankly speaking, having such a difficult raid boss and not enough players creates a feeling of anxiety and, in general, fear of missing out is present.
Why? Well, because Psystrike was recently buffed and Mewtwo is now a de facto Psychic type God if it has Psystrike (read this: Psystrike Stats Updated: Early Look at Psystrike Mewtwo). For me, getting a shiny Mewtwo is secondary to getting a Mewtwo with that much firepower – it’s a childhood power fantasy coming together.
Psystrike is so good that it blows Shadow Ball and all other moves out of the water in terms of neutral DPS and overall move set appeal. In a situation where Psystrike deals neutral damage and another Mewtwo move would deal super effective damage, Psystrike still holds it’s own and performs just slightly worse than Flamethrower / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Focus Blast. However, these situations are rare and few between, as players have amassed a huge arsenal of specialized counters over the past three years.
But alas, this is not an article about Psystrike, it’s about the T6 Mewtwo “situation”. We think Niantic dropped the ball on this one. If you’re giving out “rewards” for something that we’ve been working on for three months, then give them out with out any gotchas. Three years in, after months of Mewtwo EX raids and so many opportunities to get it, it feels like a slap in the face to have a reward that’s so difficult to obtain. Shiny or no shiny, inflating the difficulty of an encounter doesn’t make it more lucrative, especially when the reward is not perceived as something you must have.
Here’s what we think needs to happen:
- Mewtwo T5 raids should be T5 raids. These raids are easy to trio raid, they are super hard duos but it’s at least possible.
- Put a great box in the shop, or keep the current one, it’s fine(ish). Seriously, the boosted appeal of Raid Passes and the increased volume of M2 raids should be a major push forward for the game
- Keep Psystrike as it is and promote it more. The move itself is such a major step up from Psychic and the word is out there, players know this.
That’s about all I have to say on this topic. Hopefully Mewtwo gets back to regular T5 stats. We’ll keep you posted.