A comprehensive Moltres Day Guide (September 8 2018)

Pokemon GO Shiny Moltres Day, aka Moltres raid day, is a special one day event that takes place on September 8 2018, featuring an event exclusive Moltres that knows Sky Attack, a strong Flying type attack. Shiny Moltres is also available from raid battles starting with Moltres Day event, with a 1 in 10 chance to encounter it.

Moltres (or Shiny Moltres) can be caught with the following Combat Power values:

• 1788 – 1870 (Level 20, Max IV catch)
• 2235 – 2337 (Level 25, Max IV catch during Sunny or Windy weather)

For a full raid guide, please refer to our recently updated Moltres Raid Boss Guide. Otherwise just use an army of Smack Down Tyranitars to counter it.

Important information

Moltres day takes place on September 8 at the following times in various regions:

• The Asia-Pacific region: 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. JST (GMT +9)
• Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India: 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. UTC (GMT +0)
• The Americas and Greenland: 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. PDT (GMT −7)

Trainers will get 5x free Raid Passes to raid during the event, and the event takes place during the current bonus Stardust event: Pokemon GO Stardust event guide: Summer Tour 2018 event edition. Make sure to raid have an active Star Piece throughout this event (you only need three).

As mentioned before, the chance to get a shiny Moltres during the event is 1 in 10 encounters, which means that you will need to buy some additional raid passes if you want to be sure to get one.

How to get a shiny Moltres?

Shiny Moltres is exclusively available through raid encounters. During the event, chance to get a shiny Moltres is 10%, or 1 in 10 encounters on average will be shiny. This is not guaranteed and your chance is calculated fresh every raid. You could get one on your first attempt, or on your #999 attempt if you’re super unlucky.

Sky Attack Moltres in the meta

Sky Attack is a charged Flying type move that will be available for Moltres exclusively during the Moltres day and a large number of our readers asked if it is meta viable versus Machamp or in other scenarios.

Sky Attack is a second viable charge move for Moltres, as it has the same weave DPS (or cycle DPS as some folks call it) as Overheat. Let’s do a good ol’ chart comparing Sky Attack and Overheat in combination with Fire Spin, the only fast move Moltres has.

As you can see from the table above, Sky Attack is cycle-damage wise identical to Overheat, with the only difference being energy cost and type. Both Sky Attack and Overheat Moltres are good and relevant attackers versus Grass-type bosses, so no difference there.

We tried comparing Sky Attack Moltres against Machamp with other Machamp counters and our feelings are positive, but mixed:

• Sky Attack Moltres performs as well as any other Psychic counter (Espeon, Alakazam)
• There isn’t really any difference in using Moltres rather than those
• Moltres is still fairly squishy and definitely works better elsewhere, so if you really want, you can make it work against Machamp, but expect no wonders there

Conclusion: Sky Attack Moltres is viable in scenarios where Moltres already works well. Versus Fighting type opponents it performs similarly to squishy Psychic types. If you don’t have a good selection of Moltres, you may as well power up / keep a good Level 25 Sky Attack Moltres.

Moltres day info graphic