Rayquaza (and its Shiny form!!!) returns to Tier 5 Raids in Pokémon Go as of 1pm PDT on Wednesday 31st July! To help you build your best possible team of counters for your battles with Rayquaza, we’ve put together our ever-popular Heat Map.
Full credit to Pokebattler.com for all of the data contained in all of our Heat Maps.
What’s a Heat Map?
Most Raid Boss counter lists assume that you have maxed out versions of each of the Pokémon on it, but in reality, the majority of people do not. With our Rayquaza Heat Map, however, you can identify whether a lower level Pokémon will do more damage to the Raid Boss than a higher level one, due to it having a better and more effective moveset. An excellent example of this is how a level 25 Mamoswine with Powder Snow and Avalanche will do more damage to an Rayquaza Raid Boss than a level 40 Mamoswine with Mud-Slap and Avalanche (given the same amount of time).
There are several different methods for ranking Raid Boss counters, but the one we’ve selected to use is TTW, which stands for ‘Time-To-Win.’ This metric tells you which Pokémon would potentially beat the Raid Boss in the shortest amount of time, so that if you’re short of Trainers, you will have best chance of beating Rayquaza before the time runs out. Not only that, but doing more damage can mean more Premier Balls with which to try and catch the Raid Boss!
So to supplement our Rayquaza Raid Guide, here’s the Heat Map that we’ve made. Below, we’ll explain how to read and use the Heat Map to get the most out of your Raid squads:
Rayquaza Heat Map
(Credit to Pokebattler.com for the data, Redditor u/Rayunge for his guidance in compiling the data, and GOHub Artist OrangeHeart for putting the data into infographic form)
We order the counters by their TTW at level 30. This is because many good counters that perform well at the lower levels have much more competition at the higher levels. By taking level 30 counters as the standard, fewer highly-ranked counters at other levels are being omitted. This gives a more comprehensive counter list overall.
*This data assumes that you don’t know the moveset of the Raid Boss, that no moves will be weather boosted, and that you aren’t getting a friend damage bonus, so basically, almost the worst case scenario – Unless the Weather boosts the Raid Boss’ moves, things can only get easier.
How to Use Our Heat Maps
As detailed at the bottom of the graphic, to use a Pokémon GO Hub Heat Map, you first need to identify which of the listed Pokémon you have, whether they have the specified moveset (If not, you can of course use some TMs) and what level they are. As a rough guide:
- If the Power Up button has disappeared completely, your Pokémon is at Level 40.
- If it costs around 8000 Stardust to power up, it’s at about level 35.
- If it costs around 5000 Stardust to power up, it’s at about level 30.
- If it costs around 4000 Stardust to power up, it’s at about level 25.
- If it costs around 2500 Stardust to power up, it’s at about level 20.
(These Stardust costs should of course be halved if you’re looking at a Lucky Pokémon)
Try to identify your 12 best counters so that you can fill two Battle Parties because if Rayquaza defeats your first Party and you don’t want to use Max Revives, you’ll then have your next-most-optimal Party ready to go straight back into battle.
Once you know which of these Pokémon you have and roughly what level they are, it’s time to put them in order of best to worst; The numbers in the grid represent how long that counter, at that level, with that moveset would take to beat the raid boss if the counter had unlimited HP. So the lower (and greener) the number, the better.
When you’ve ordered your Pokémon from best to worst, you can make a couple of battle parties so that you’re ready for every encounter you have with the Raid Boss.
Checking the TTW of Other Counters
If you need to check the TTW of a potential counter that isn’t listed in the Heat Map, here’s a quick rundown of how to do this:
- Visit the Raid Counters section of Pokebattler.com
- Scroll down until you find the Custom Raid section
- Choose the Raid Boss you’re trying to counter and the level of the counter you’re trying to find the TTW for.
- Leave the Weather set to ‘Extreme’ and the Friend bonus set to ‘Not Friends’ – this provides you with a (near) worst case scenario.
- Click ‘Find Best Raider’ and a list of counters will populate.
- At the top of the list of counters, there will be two small icons. One allows you to choose the metric (TTW, Estimator, etc.), while the other allows you to choose whether to group the counters by species or display all of their movesets singularly. Choose TTW on one and Single on the other.
- Find the potential counter you’re looking for in the list (there’s a ‘More’ button if it doesn’t appear within the top 24) and compare it to the rest of your potential counters.
- Remember to check that you’re looking at the same moveset as your Pokémon has (or check which one has the lowest TTW and TM to that).
- If you need any further help on this, feel free to contact me using the links below.
Best of luck in your battles with Rayquaza, and if you have any feedback, suggestions, or changes you’d like to see in our future Raid Boss Heat Maps, please Tweet @GoHubQoncept or join us on the GO Hub Discord and tag @Qoncept with your comments.