Shadow Raids have been around for over 4 months now. These are where you fight a Shadow Pokémon boss, a Pokémon left by Team GO Rocket members to defend a Gym. Personally, I see them popping up around my town pretty much taunting me by displaying the Shadow Pokémon that is unobtainable due to low raid lobby sizes. I want to discuss some of the highs and lows of the Shadow Raid system, and bring in some of your opinions too!
What are Shadow Raids?
Shadow Raid Bosses will grow enraged as you battle them, boosting their attack and defence. While the boss is enraged, it becomes more difficult to defeat.
Shadow Shards can be forged together to create Purified Gems, which will help you defeat enraged Shadow Raid bosses. Using a Purified Gem will calm the Shadow Raid Boss from its enraged state.
Shadow Raids have a 6/6/6 IV floor, not 10/10/10 as it is with usual Raids. Tier 5 shadow raids currently only hatch at the weekend. Lastly, Shadow Raids are in-person only, so there is no Remote Raiding for you Shadow Raiders out there.
Since the introduction of shadow raids, we have seen the three Legendary Birds alongside Mewtwo in Tier 5 raids. These shadow bosses all had shiny eligibility, and being shadow Pokémon, they also have the potential to be top attackers for Gym and Raid battles. However, as they are only in-person this has caused lots of restrictions and people not managing to collect these Shadow ‘Mon let alone shiny hunt them.
I hopped over to Twitter to get an idea of what you guys think about Shadow Raids. Love them or hate them, I wanted your feedback!
thanks for your interaction on my routes tweet, I’ve got another one for you!
I’m writing an opinion piece on shadow raids. What’s your opinion? Do you like them, is in-person only a good or bad feature? what could be done to improve? 📝#PokemonGO pic.twitter.com/pMnkSMEsqL
— phrixu (@phrixu) September 25, 2023
The feedback I received was very much along the lines of my experience with shadow raids so far. The general consensus is that it seems like a great feature in theory, but in application, it simply hasn’t worked for smaller communities, and those without active Raid Groups.
In Person Only is Too Limiting
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room – these raids can only be completed in person. It seems like completing these raids is nearly impossible unless you’re living in a highly active city. Even in London at Victoria Station, I couldn’t find anyone to join me in a Tier 5 Shadow Raid lobby. To successfully complete these raids, players must be in highly populated or touristy areas or require coordination through communication apps like Campfire. The pre-planning required for these raids, despite not knowing the specific location or timeframe ahead of time, makes them less spontaneous and can reduce motivation to participate.
Tier 5 Shadow raids need to either be Remote Raidable, or done as a 3-hour event, there isn’t enough in-person interest here to gather a group for one-offs. – @WendyLou69_TL50
Not really a user-friendly feature, far too hard to take down in smaller communities if you don’t have the gems. Either allow remote raids or improve the rewards. – @pogo_central
I get their concept of trying to get us out & to make friends with locals, but it is just not feasible for a lot of the player base. Completed 0 shadow zap raids, even tho I tried. – @Bionox96
If you live in a small town you’re out of luck. – @arm20_20
Purified Gems to Raid Tier ratio
Tier 1 Shadow Bosses do not get enraged. However, Tier 3 and Tier 5 Shadow Raids both require eight Purified Gems to subdue the Raid Boss. Trainers can only use five Purified Gems per Shadow raid battle, this means that to complete a 3-star raid, you must have at least 2 Trainers in the raid lobby – unless, of course, you’ve got some seriously strong Pokémon that can attack through the enraged state. This is extremely limiting to rural players who usually can solo a Tier 3 Boss and do not have someone that they can raid with.
0 reason why T3 are same amount of gems to subdue as a T5. If I want to solo a T3 then let me use my 5 gems to subdue. All in all cool feature but massive rework needs to be done. – @BreaksMik
Purified Pokémon Rework
Purifying a Shadow Pokémon will improve their appraisal and reduce the amount of Stardust and Candy required for them to Power Up, Evolve, or learn a new attack. When Purified, a Shadow Pokémon will forget Frustration and learn Return, a Charged Attack that’s exclusive to Purified Pokémon. However, some Trainers think that this system needs a rework.
I don’t get why purified pokemon [are] doing the same/less damage than regular or shadow pokemon? Isn’t the bond [between] us & our pokemon worth a damage boost? I am still hoping for a boost to purified pokemon, and I feel like Niantic could have improved purified pokemon for shadow raids. – @PB48855256
IV Floor
Regular raids have an IV floor of 10-10-10, meaning that the Pokémon that can be captured is likely to be 3 Star and therefore a very strong attacker. It seems that the compromise for Shadow Pokémon having boosted stats is that its Raid encounter IV floor is lower. This, however, is not helping with the lack of motivation towards these raids.
Floor IV of 6-6-6 does not give enough incentive to raid. – @WendyLou69_TL50
Honorable Mentions
Generally, the community vibe seems to be that Shadow Raids need a rework. Purified Gems aren’t working how they were originally described, purified Pokémon seem to be all but forgotten and shadow raids simply are not working.
Massive rework needs to be put in place, make it so you get a purified version of the raid boss if you are remote raiding. Make purified gems work like how they described them (not unenraging but overall making them weaker). Maybe catch at a higher level than normal raids. – @The_real_n1n
Shortly after the debut of shadow raids, the Rising Shadows event allowed trainers to get their hands on a shiny shadow Mewtwo. A fellow GO Hub writer Kitty did a review of her experience of Shadow Mewtwo Raid Weekend, be sure to check it out!
I was in London during Shadow Mewtwo Raid Weekend and despite running (yes, literally) across what felt like the whole of Westminster between raids to get to the next active raid I had a great time! Lobbies were filling up quickly and we were defeating Mewtwo with no problem. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to snag the shiny, but luck just was not on my side that day. Towards the end of the day, on the last raid lobby I tried to join, I began to encounter what the future of Shadow Raiding would feel like no one would join the lobby.
Since that day, I have only managed to complete one Tier 5 Raid, Shadow Zapdos, not through lack of trying. I’ve been trying to get an active raid room across multiple towns, even in touristy areas of London. I thought the raid lobby count feature would be super useful for spotting raid activity and hopping into a raid, but it doesn’t seem to attract any players.
In my town, it just doesn’t work. There are not enough players around on an average weekend, and lighting flares on Campfire doesn’t gain any traction. The only chance is on a community day when a local group tends to meet up and play together taking some raids as they go. I was lucky to bump into this group on Grubbin Community Day and did my first aforementioned shadow Zapdos raid.
That being said, being able to capture shadow raid bosses with (potentially) good IVs and having the chance to be shiny is definitely something I would be in on if it was more accessible. A possible solution to help Trainers with small communities might be to allow them to invite one best or ultra friend. This would still require a physical presence of in-person raiders but not such a big group that it would be impossible to gather. It would also encourage people to work on and maintain their in-game friendships.
If Shadow Raids are going to remain in-person only, there should be a set time (similar to elite raids or Shadow Mewtwo day) when they will hatch so that people can plan to participate. Currently, Tier 5 raids spawn at any time and anywhere over the weekend, making it very difficult to gather enough people at any given time, unless you have an active raiding group.
I think Shadow Raids 100% have the possibility to be a really cool and exciting addition to the current raid schedule. However, the way they’ve been pushed needs a rethink. Communities still aren’t what they were pre-COVID, I don’t think any amount of pushing in-person-only features and nerfing remote raids is going to bring that back.
Discussion
We’d love to hear more from you. What has your experience been of Shadow Raids so far?
